Waiting Game: Why Mavs Won’t Make Splashy Trade This Year

With limited trade assets, the Mavs must be patient while waiting for the perfect opportunity to pair another star player with Luka Doncic.

If you’re waiting for the Dallas Mavericks to do something big on the trade market, you might have to wait a little bit longer — at least one more year to be exact.

Aside from apparently not offering Jalen Brunson a contract extension before last season’s trade deadline, Mavs general manager Nico Harrison has done a fine job in his first year on the job. He was able to get off Kristaps Porzingis’ max contract without having to give up a first-round pick, and he’s added Reggie Bullock, Spencer Dinwiddie, Christian Wood and JaVale McGee — all of whom make the Mavs’ roster better than Harrison found it.

However, Harrison is also still feeling the strain of the previous regime’s decisions.

It started in 2019 when Dallas pulled the trigger on the Porzingis deal. It was a chance the Mavs had to take at the time, but it didn’t work out, and now they’re restricted from getting in the mix for other big trades until their 2023 first-round pick coveys to the New York Knicks. Dallas also traded Harrison Barnes to the Sacramento Kings in what was essentially a salary dump (shoutout to Zach Randolph, who was a Maverick for about 10 seconds).

A brutal 2019 free agency period hasn’t helped Dallas over the last three years either. The Mavs dumped Barnes to have max cap space that year, but essentially did nothing with it. The best signing in the aftermath of that summer was Seth Curry on a team-friendly contract … and then the Mavs traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers a year later in exchange for Josh Richardson … who was then salary-dumped to the Boston Celtics a year later in exchange for Moses Brown and a $10.8 million traded player exception. Brown was waived by the Mavs earlier this season, and the T.P.E expired without being used.

The Mavs also signed Delon Wright to a three-year, $27 million contract in 2019 as well. Wright was eventually traded to the Detroit Pistons in a three-team trade that netted Dallas James Johnson in 2020 … who was traded to the New Orleans Pelicans later that season, along with two second-round picks, for an injured J.J. Redick. Redick played in 13 games for Dallas and then retired.

Throw in the fact that the Mavs passed up on talented young players like Tyrese Maxey and Desmond Bane in the 2020 draft, and all of that has contributed to Dallas’ rise to title contention not being as swift as it could’ve been. This isn’t to say that Josh Green won’t develop into a key rotation piece going forward, but he’s just on a slower trajectory than the others in his class.

Again, Harrison has been able to rebound from that string of errors well, but he’s not quite out of the woods yet either. Don’t expect the Mavs to make any deals over the next year that would have to include future first-round picks. Because once the 2023 draft passes, a whole new box of trade possibilities will open up for Dallas.

The Mavs will likely only have one more chance at a “throw the kitchen sink” type of trade before Luka Doncic becomes an unrestricted free agent in 2026, so they must make sure it’s the right one this time.

That said, if the Mavs can find another bargain deal like they did with Wood, where they essentially only had to trade some end-of-the-bench players to acquire him, they’ll do it in a heartbeat … but those deals are few and far between.

For now, the Mavs are willing to work with what they have, and what they have is still pretty good. Is it good enough to make it back to the Western Conference Finals? Let’s find out.

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You can follow Dalton Trigg on Twitter at @dalton_trigg

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