The Dallas Mavericks Have Quietly Had A Great Offseason

The Dallas Mavericks Have Quietly Had A Great Offseason

How would you grade the Dallas Mavericks off season thus far? Kevin Gray, Tim Ko, Bobby Krillin, and our national NBA insider Mark Stein. Of course, we are DLLS Mavs. It’s been a busy one already for these Dallas Mavericks getting things done with Daniel Gaffford, Kyrie Irving, Dante Exom as well. And oh, by the way, bringing in D’Angelo Russell. So, Tim Ko, how would you grade the Dallas Mavericks off seasonason thus far? I think the the the one slight difference I will make is that I give them a a good solid A for execution of the way they went about their summer because their plan was to fill point guard with the free agency market with the non- taxpayers mid-level uh bring back uh Dante Axom if possible. We’re still waiting. It’s still incomplete to see exactly the uh the additional move that’s going to make that possible. Uh but but whatever it is, it shouldn’t really change anything. So looking at the offseason, looking at what they were able to execute, everything that was within their own power, the way they chose to approach it, hey, great summer, fantastic, got what I think was, you know, the best shooter on the market in D’Angelo Russell, something they’ve really needed, you know, a player with talent, with experience. I might have gone around, you know, I might have gone into the summer with a slightly different vision if I were running the team, but I’m not. So, I would say I would give the vision a B. I don’t mind it. You know, I would have done something a little bit differently. I think it’s reasonable and it’s still coherent the way they ended up going for the most part in the sense that you still have players and things of value and the ability to pivot to Cooper Flag when the time is right. And that’s the most important thing, you know, like all those words I just said, they got Cooper flag. It’s an A. Yeah. I think interestingly, you know, their their best thing that they’ve done this summer is draft Cooper Flag, which is the one thing that was really out of their control. Um, but to their credit, you know, negotiating that new contract with Kyrie Irving was huge. You know, working with him to essentially take a bit of a pay cut in year one in order to free up that taxpayer mid-level that they then gave to D’Angelo Russell was just really good negotiation work by Nico Harrison, by the Mavs front office, and obviously by Kyrie as well. Feels like everybody wins with that deal. he gets more money, more years, and more security and all that stuff. And the Mavs are able to add talent to try and hold things down while he’s gone. So, you know, just those two deals alone are excellent. I think getting Dante Exom to come back is really, really good. And I think if if he’s healthy, he’s going to be one of their best guards until Kyrie comes back, uh, if not their best guards as far as his ability to play both sides of the ball and to shoot and do all that stuff. Um, you know, getting DL, I’m kind of with you, Tim. like I I personally would have tried to get a higher paid guard, maybe go through the trade market or whatever, but uh getting DLO at that price point is a great deal. And then also the the negotiation with Daniel Gaffford, that extension, I feel like every move they’ve made has been really good. Even if it isn’t what I personally would have done, but objectively, you look at what they’ve done, it it’s been really good so far. Yeah, I think that’s a good way of putting it. They’ve pretty much met all the objectives that they’ve had. Obviously, you know, you win the lottery after 40 plus years of just tortured lottery history. That’s probably going to overshadow anything else that you could or would have done. But yeah, the Gaffford deal looks like a very good number when you see what’s happening in the center market. Nas Reed got 25 million and that spurred, you know, that was a a central part of Miles Turner wanting to leave Indiana when we all thought he was going to stay in Indiana because my colleague Jake Fischer reported this week that the Pacers were unwilling to go higher than 22 mil a year for Turner. And he ended up going to Milwaukee to get a deal that paid him more than Nas Reed. So to get Gaffford at the 18 million mark, right? 354. So, um, you know, those those players are more accomplished than than Daniel Gaffford overall, but to get Daniel Gaffford at sub 20 million, not having a second round pick, not trading for a second round pick, but getting Ryan Nebard on a two-way, I think, was a move that the man to my left was pretty excited about when that happened. So, yeah, like all, you know, the, you know, making sure you don’t lose Exom. They did try for Chris Paul. They wanted Chris Paul. Chris Paul would have been the number one guy at that price point. Chris Paul didn’t want to come to Dallas. If he wanted to come to Dallas, I’m sure the Mavericks would have signed him. The goal there was, can they get a player who can play in place of Kyrie Irving and play with Kyrie Irving? I think we’re going to need to see the second half of that statement to really judge it. How will D’Angelo Russell, what will his role be when Kyrie Irving is back and the clear focal point of the back court? I don’t think we have that answer yet, but to get D’Angelo Russell at that cost, to get Dante Exom back when, you know, Dante Exom had a lot of European interest. I don’t really think he wanted to act on it. I think Dante Exom very clearly wanted to stay in the NBA, but to bring him back on a minimum deal, they’ve got Brandon Williams. You know, let’s see where Brandon Williams is when training camp starts in terms of how much better he is as a player. like they have done as much as they possibly could under some pretty serious constraints. Yeah, this team objectively has had a good off season. We talked about Daniel Gaffford and the team friendly deal that he took with the three years $54 million. Kyrie Irving taking a little bit of a haircut to be able to open up that mid-level exception to get D’Angelo Russell in the fold. Big move by Kyrie to be able to help facilitate that. You get the deal done with Dante Xman. by the way, you draft Cooper Flack and then you still also have a chance later on this summer to get PJ Washington done as far as a contract extension is concerned. So, every single item on their list that they have wanted to try and solve and get done, uh, they did so quickly and decisively to be able to move forward to give them this kind of vision that they are looking forward to. And with health going into next year, this team feels like I believe that they’re in prime position uh even with Kyrie Irving coming back from that 2L to at least stem the tide until he does return. So based off of everything that they needed to do, I think objectively they have done a very good job of that and I think the front office deserves the credit uh for doing so again in a decisive manner to be able to move this plan uh forward as smoothly as possible. I think we got to throw the coaching staff business in there as well because I can tell you that around the league there has been so much curiosity about going back to May it started. Hey I think there’s going to be some big changes on the Dallas bench. I remember hearing those whispers from other teams. And so again, we have covered this a bit in the past, but just to reiterate, you don’t often see a team face approaches for all three front of the bench assistants. They all depart and the Mavericks have been able to bring back in, you know, they lose Shawn Sweeney, they lost Alex Jensen, they were losing Jared Dudley to be able to hire Frank Vogle and Jay Triano and we’ll see who ends up in the number three seat. But I know that internally the Mavs feel I mean they are very excited about the fact that Frank Vogle who didn’t need Frank Vogle’s been a head coach four teams already Pacers Magic Lakers Suns you know Frank Vogle does not need to come back to assistant work to get his next coaching job. I do think Frank Vogle will get another head coaching opportunity in the near future to get to to secure his commitment to come back and and anchor the you know anchor this staff in terms of assistance that was significant as well as as we said this offseason is an A because of Cooper flag and for all the concerns some of them mild some of them maybe a little bit more than mild that I’ve had point of attack uh do you have enough minutes in the in the front court to play everybody Is there going to be antsiness from players who are used to a certain role who are now coming off the bench who are not not now not playing as many minutes as they expect to be? Are you not developing people further down the bench? Do you have the ball handlers? You know, a bunch of bunch of small things. Some of them a little bit larger than others. You But Dallas didn’t change anything. all of the value, all of the players that are appealing to other front offices around the league, all of the picks, not many, but you know what picks they had. At no point did Dallas go and try to double down further on the current vision. Not to say they ever were, but the key is if you want to try to win now, but you know, this future, the future of this franchise is going to be based around Cooper Flag, you know, there’s a pivot, you know, a a changeover, an identity that is going to shift to Cooper Flag being the beall endall in terms of how you build this roster. But they didn’t they didn’t shift this roster more towards winning now. And so, I do respect that and and I think that’s the most important thing. Don’t sell out. Don’t go get some, you know, another older guy just to boost your chances now at the expense of what’s to come. LeBron James possibly as an example. The key is that as long as you maintain this team, you see how it works. Uh they believe in it, you know, uh there’s reason to believe in it. as long as they take this team, this roster into next season and really the season after that because Kyrie Irving, you know, it just it just he may not be 100% right even when he does return this year. As long as you take all of those pieces, you don’t double down, you keep the flexibility open for as long as possible and you know that changeover is coming, uh I I think I think it’s fine to proceed this way and and that’s what Dallas did this summer. uh you know in the totality of their moves. This is a lot of like process stuff and that’s all that we can talk about right now because of course they haven’t played the games. They will over the course of the next 10 months or whatever the case is. But the general manager has talked about the results and the results that they are wanting and Jason Kidd the head coach has done that too and the players have said it too. They want to win the championship. They don’t want to win the championship in three years. They want to win the championship right now. And so, you know, I think that the worries that you mentioned, Tim, some of the problems that they still, I think, need to work to solve, playmaking depth, um, you know, Kyrie injuries, Kyrie’s looming injury is like a huge thing because we just don’t know how long he’s going to be out. You know, these are things that could hurt them during the regular season and could prevent them from getting into the playoffs. You know, this is a team that I think when healthy stacks up just about against any other team in the NBA. They have a very very good roster, but we know there’s going to be 40 or 50 built-in miss games from Kyrie optimistically. And so, you know, they you have to be in the top six or ultimately the top eight in order to win the title. And we’ll see if they have what it takes to get there. But I think there’s no question when this team is healthy, they’re very, very, very, very good. And I just personally hope that the results, you know, pay off the process that I think has been really good. And I just think competing now is the cherry on top. That’s the bonus. The future is is Cooper flag. Dallas has not made any moves. Not for the GM. I mean the the Mavs believe the future is right now. That is true. And that’s the way that you have to approach it. But as long as you are not making moves to compromise that’s coming. I don’t think they have to approach it that way. I think they’ve chosen to approach it. Well, yeah. I agree with I think it’s fine to choose that way. So the future is Vegas, baby. It certainly is. Uh when it comes to the immediate future of the Dallas Mavericks as they prepare for summer and the immediate future of this show. That’s right. For the DLLs MAS podcast, make sure that you follow DLSS_maz. As yes, the entire show will be in Las Vegas for summerly for Cooper Flags first two games as a Dallas Maverick. So, alert the authorities. We will be providing coverage. We’ll be totally safe. I promise. We will be safe. Speak for yourself. Tanner on the road. Goodness. Tanner will be I can’t even imagine what what’s gonna happen. I can’t wait to hang out with Tanner. I’m not gonna lie to you. I can’t wait to hang out with Tanner in Vegas. Uh so make sure you follow us at DLLs_mass for all of our Vegas summerly coverage. Uh thank you to Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino, the official hotel of the DLS Mavs podcast for helping us out. Uh that’ll do it for us here on Copious Vegas coverage on the way. That’ll do it for us here on the DLLS Mavs podcast. We’ll talk to you next time right here on DLS. Let’s support y’all. Be good. Peace.

The Dallas Mavericks’ offseason is off to a terrific start. They’ve drafted Cooper Flagg, signed Kyrie Irving and Daniel Gafford to team-friendly contracts, signed D’Angelo Russell to the mid-level exception, and reportedly have agreed to bring back Dante Exum too. The DLLS Mavs crew breaks down their summer moves so far before addressing further needs the team might need to look to address before the season tips off in October.