Pistons 'Admire' Jalen Brunson; Should Mavs Trade Him (or Dorian Finney-Smith) for Jerami Grant?

The Dallas Mavericks have been in multiple NBA trade rumors lately, and that will only grow in the coming weeks. Do the Detroit Pistons want Jalen Brunson for Jerami Grant?

Dalton Trigg | Jan 26, 2022

The Dallas Mavericks find themselves in a tough spot now that Tim Hardaway Jr. has gone down with a foot injury that will keep him sidelined indefinitely. Not only does that take away your best scoring option off the bench, but it could also impact any potential trade talks that Hardaway Jr. might have been a part of before it happened.

With the NBA trade deadline just two weeks away, though, the latest Mavs trade rumblings come from the HoopsHype Podcast featuring Michael Scotto and Yossi Gozlan.

"A lot of executives around the league expect either Dorian Finney-Smith or Jalen Brunson to possibly be on the move by the trade deadline, since it will be tough for Dallas to keep both those players going forward and avoid the luxury tax," says Scotto.

As we wrote last night, Hardaway Jr.'s unfortunate injury likely raises the Mavs front office's level of urgency to get a deal a deal done in the next week or so. Perhaps there is something that can be worked out with the Detroit Pistons for Jerami Grant, who has been a hot name on the NBA trade market this year. The Grant-to-Dallas smoke seems to growing.

"I’ve heard Jalen Brunson has some admirers in Detroit," says Scotto. "If Dallas is able to enter the mix for Jerami Grant and acquire him, don’t be surprised if either Brunson or Finney-Smith is involved in a trade package."

Scotto also mentions that many teams, including the Atlanta Hawks, Portland Trail Blazers, Indiana Pacers, Washington Wizards and New Orleans Pelicans have been 'keeping tabs' on Finney-Smith.

Even if the Mavs aren't able to work out a deal for Grant, the popularity of Brunson and Finney-Smith around the league should give Dallas a handful of options to sort through as February 10 approaches. It will be up to general manager Nico Harrison and, hopefully to a much less extent, owner Mark Cuban to determine what direction the team will go from here.

Stay tuned to DallasBasketball.com for all Mavs-related trade rumor updates.

Published Jan 26, 2022

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.