I am beginning to think the podcast Brian Foster put on, perhaps, has some magic properties. On our last show, we discussed the upcoming trade deadline and how major trades don’t tend to happen. We did mention one of the outliers. Years ago, the Mavericks made a blockbuster trade with the Nets, then of New Jersey, for Jason Kidd. It took a few seasons, but it helped them to a title. We’ve also poked the Mavericks for their inability to put enough talent around Luka Doncic or, more accurately, keep good talent around him. So, are they repeating their magic from the Dirk Nowitzki days? No. No, they are not.
Thanks, Mavs PR, for succinctly summing up the trade. Let’s fill in some of the blanks.
Contentious Take #1: Ignore the Picks
With apologies, I’ve definitely gotten some pushback on this take, but in most trades, I consider the value of draft picks next to meaningless next to any veteran close to average. In this case, the draft picks are so far in the future as not to matter. Any team can easily acquire a 2nd round pick in almost any year for cash. For any playoff squad, the same can be said about first-round picks. In theory, a team with Luka Doncic, who will only be 30 when the 2029 NBA draft comes around, should be a playoff squad.
Now, there is some asymmetry here. Should the Mavericks slip or lose Doncic, whose contract is up before the 2028 draft, then the Nets may find themselves with a higher draft pick. Should that happen, I would definitely argue for Brooklyn trading it. See my last piece on how super high draft picks aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Regardless, I'm ignoring the picks for this analysis, especially on the Mavs end.
Fill in the Blanks for the Nets
Spencer Dinwiddie
Age: 29
Salary: 2 years, $21 million/year. Or ~14% of the average team payroll.
Wins: ~6/year in 2,000 minutes, last two seasons, or ~15% of an average team’s wins (trying to average the two, he’s at 20% of an average team’s production).
Dorian Finney-Smith
Age: 29
Salary: 4 years, $14 million/year. Or ~10% of the average team payroll.
Wins: A bit sporadic. He hits 7.5 wins in 2,600 minutes last year but is at 2.5 wins in only 1,300 so far this year. He was a lock for at least 6 wins and 2,000 minutes for most of his 20s. Largely this season, caused by time missed with injury. He does seem to be returning to form in recent games. Currently, he’s 9% of an average team’s wins for 2022-2023.
The Nets acquired two “close to average” players in line with their pay. I’ve also stressed, particularly with the Mavs, that once you have a top ten player in the NBA, your mindset it’s completely fine to “overpay” for average players as long as it keeps you competitive. I’ve also expanded this point - if you have a star player and let an average or above veteran out the door without a replacement, that is a major blunder.
This move is only bad for the Nets if they let better players go to the Mavs. So, how’s that looking?
Fill in the Blanks for the Mavericks
Kyrie Irving
Age: 30
Salary: 1 year, $37 million. Or ~25% of the average team payroll.
Wins: This gets fun. Last year, on roughly average play, he put up 2.7 wins, largely due to injury and sitting home games because he did not take the Covid vaccine. This year he’s at 4.5 wins on slightly more efficient play than Dinwiddie but fewer minutes. Even using that peak, he’s at 17% of an average team’s wins.
Markieff Morris
Age: 33 years old
Salary: 1 year, $2 million. Nothing in cap terms. Luckily it’s expiring. See below.
Wins: This gets funny. Markieff has averaged negative wins in the past two seasons in very limited minutes! Last year he “racked up” -0.2 wins in 300 minutes. This year? It’s at -0.4. We’ll talk a little below.
My suspicion is Markieff Morris is a rounding requirement for salaries. That said, I'd be nervous until the Mavericks officially waive him. Bad players on rosters can find their way to getting minutes. And all it takes is one playoff game from Markieff to ruin things. To be fair, I don’t expect this.
Let’s throw out a bigger point here. Kyrie Irving was a great draft pick. Kyrie was the player to take if you had the #1 pick. We liked Kawhi Leonard and Kenneth Faried in the same draft, but both fell out of the draft lottery. For Cleveland, Kyrie played very well, contributed to a title, and then fell off slightly with an injury. Allegedly, he threatened to sit out to get surgery if Cleveland didn’t trade him, which they did, to Boston. For Boston? He put up several star seasons there before he left as a free agent for Brooklyn. In his first two seasons with Brooklyn, he looked very good but played limited minutes due to injury. I already noted last season’s injury and off-court issues. This brings us to where Kyrie is a good, not great, player. Kyrie has had a recent run of very good games. 7 of his last 8 games have been good, with an amazing 48 points game on 1-20. It’s possible he’s on his way back to form. I get skittish about older players with major injuries coming back 100%. Tack on many of his issues this year, and I’d rather not risk assets on Kyrie. You can listen to our remarks on Kyrie’s off-court issues on the Boxscore Geeks show, where we praise the Knicks with Jalen Brunson, who the Mavericks could definitely use.
Wrapping Up
Frustratingly this trade has a lot of funny outcomes, many of which will lead some to the wrong conclusions. Luka Doncic is so good. He may very well win the Mavericks a series they should lose. And, of course, Irving, no matter the efficiency, will average 20+ points a game in such a series. And then, the consensus will be the Mavericks made the right decision. I expect, on paper, the Nets to get better. And the easy crutch will be locker room chemistry and removing unknowns. This will ignore that, on paper, Spencer Dinwiddie and Doran Finney-Smith are more productive than Kyrie Irving. But the Nets have lived and died by their stars’ health — including Kryie Irving! If KD or Ben Simmons, both players that have missed full seasons to injury, lose a step? Then the Nets may get chided for giving up too soon, especially if the Mavs outperform expectations. But, as I am a process-driven analyst, I can say, on paper, the Nets easily won this trade. And, historically speaking, when I say such things about New York teams involved in moves with the Mavericks? I tend to be right. The good news I keep harping on is with a transcendent player like Doncic, it doesn’t take much to turn things around. Instead of taking big swings on older, problematic injury-prone players like Kristaps Porzingis and Kyrie Irving, the Mavs could target reasonable veterans … like Jalen Brunson, Spencer Dinwiddie, and Dorian Finney-Smith. We’ll see what happens or if I’ll write another one of these articles next “superstar trade” the Mavericks make.
-Dre