LBJ Sweepstakes?

[tsar]

Anyone? Can we somehow have a chance at this? Discuss...

[dirno2000]

Why would he come to Dallas of all places?

Bosh is a more realistic target but even that's such a long shot that you shouldn't plan for it two years in advance.

[Dtownsfinest]

Hey now. I'd love to get Bosh myself. You can't lose between Bosh, Lebron and 'Melo. Its going to be difficult to even clear cap space for those guys though. Its a long shot.

[Zki41]

Bosh would be good to mix with Josh and Green.

If Dirk retires, we would gain a TON of money losing J-Kidd, Stack's, and I think Damp's contracts. That'd be more than enough to get Bosh.

[Burn this City]

Originally Posted by tsar

Anyone? Can we somehow have a chance at this? Discuss...

No chance...if he leaves Cleveland it's for New York/Brooklyn.

[FINtastic]

Dallas would probably be best off just rebuilding from the draft. We need more than just one superstar at this point to get this thing right. If that were the case, Dirk and Kidd would be the answer to our current problems. We need to assemble an entire roster of young talent, and we need to do it through the draft.

Not to mention, it's just hard to lure franchise NBA free agents away from their teams. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but when they are max-level worthy players, those players generally don't budge from their previous teams.

[Zki41]

Sign a free agent and get a good draft pick.

[Dtownsfinest]

Originally Posted by FINtastic

Dallas would probably be best off just rebuilding from the draft. We need more than just one superstar at this point to get this thing right. If that were the case, Dirk and Kidd would be the answer to our current problems. We need to assemble an entire roster of young talent, and we need to do it through the draft.

Not to mention, it's just hard to lure franchise NBA free agents away from their teams. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but when they are max-level worthy players, those players generally don't budge from their previous teams.

How do you rebuild with no draft picks? If possible i'd love to clear cap space by trading some of these guys and getting draft picks. Outside of Dirk I don't think we can get any picks for any of these guys. Not 1st rounders anyway.

[FINtastic]

Originally Posted by Dtownsfinest

How do you rebuild with no draft picks? If possible i'd love to clear cap space by trading some of these guys and getting draft picks. Outside of Dirk I don't think we can get any picks for any of these guys. Not 1st rounders anyway.

Like you said, Dirk. You maybe dangle Howard out there and see if you can net a first or get a young player with upside out of it. We don't quite have no draft picks, but I agree that the 2010 first rounder to New Jersey hurts. At this point though it's a sunk cost, you do the best with what you have. Guys like Dirk and Howard aren't going to go up in value by waiting (I'm not saying you dump at the first opportunity a la Memphis, but you should be listening to any serious offers).

The problem I see with the game of trying to sign a big name free agent when you don't have the draft picks is three-fold:

1. I can't say I have the salary cap memorized, but everything I know about it says that when a player is in max-deal territory, you can't really compete money-wise with his previous employer. Now a player might be willing to take a discount if you have a good supporting cast that he thinks he can win with, but that brings me to my next point...

2. The Mavericks don't look to have a lot of players that are going to lure guys like Bosh and LeBron in. What do we have? Kidd will probably be gone, Dirk is getting older, Jet and Damp are starting to get really old (and is Damp's contract up by then? I think so).

3. If you do lure one of those guys in, and you don't have the supporting cast in place, then you get stuck in the situation like Cleveland is in with LeBron. They are really in a no-win situation to be honest. LeBron is too good to ever let them fall into lottery status (especially in the east) so they can't score a hot-shot rookie, and they don't have any nice pieces to trade.

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by FINtastic

Not to mention, it's just hard to lure franchise NBA free agents away from their teams. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but when they are max-level worthy players, those players generally don't budge from their previous teams.

True. You've got to get lucky and find a team whose owner is a know-it-all who is too smart for his own good.

[FINtastic]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

True. You've got to get lucky and find a team whose owner is a know-it-all who is too smart for his own good.

I've got to give you credit, chum. It's been 4 years after the fact, and you still manage to inject Steve Nash's name into completely unrelated subjects with the greatest of ease.

[chumdawg]

It's not unrelated if you are a Mavericks fan!

[nowhereman]

We have too many major commitments until the summer of 2011 to be able to pull this off.

kidd expires this year, stack the year after (unless we pick up his option, which i highly doubt we will). that's 28 million off the books, still leaves us about 8 million over the cap. And those aren't players that we can resign to high dollar amounts to swing a sign and trade.

Our contracts thru 2011 are JJB, Damp, Jho, Dirk. Terry and Diop don't expire until 2012 and 2013 respectively. Unless we swing at least 2 of the 3 big 2011 contracts (damp, jho, dirk) for players with shorter contracts, there's no real chance of being a player here. And that seems like it would be hard to pull off, given how much of a commodity those expiring deals are.

[Dtownsfinest]

Originally Posted by FINtastic

Like you said, Dirk. You maybe dangle Howard out there and see if you can net a first or get a young player with upside out of it. We don't quite have no draft picks, but I agree that the 2010 first rounder to New Jersey hurts. At this point though it's a sunk cost, you do the best with what you have. Guys like Dirk and Howard aren't going to go up in value by waiting (I'm not saying you dump at the first opportunity a la Memphis, but you should be listening to any serious offers).

The problem I see with the game of trying to sign a big name free agent when you don't have the draft picks is three-fold:

1. I can't say I have the salary cap memorized, but everything I know about it says that when a player is in max-deal territory, you can't really compete money-wise with his previous employer. Now a player might be willing to take a discount if you have a good supporting cast that he thinks he can win with, but that brings me to my next point...

2. The Mavericks don't look to have a lot of players that are going to lure guys like Bosh and LeBron in. What do we have? Kidd will probably be gone, Dirk is getting older, Jet and Damp are starting to get really old (and is Damp's contract up by then? I think so).

3. If you do lure one of those guys in, and you don't have the supporting cast in place, then you get stuck in the situation like Cleveland is in with LeBron. They are really in a no-win situation to be honest. LeBron is too good to ever let them fall into lottery status (especially in the east) so they can't score a hot-shot rookie, and they don't have any nice pieces to trade.

Yea that's a good point. New Jersey is doin' a pretty good job though of getting young guys like Devin and Yi who don't get paid much. I guess that's the way to go about it and hope by the time 'Bron is a free agent they've developed into their potential. I just don't know anymore lol. I guess it does start with draft picks now that I think about it. We have this year draft pick which IMO, probably will be a average pick and probably no lower than 13 or 14th.

[MavsWiLLHaVeRinGs]

I've read rumors that Lebron has told people that Dallas is a potential place he would like to go as well as New York, and New Jersey, maybe just because he's such a big Dallas Cowboys fan. It seems highly unlikely still though.

[dirk2003]

no why the fuck would he come to an even bigger loser than cleveland? the only way you can pull a player in free agency is if he is undervalued, which lbj is not.

[rmacomic]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

It's not unrelated if you are a Mavericks fan!

And sad to say it is true, letting Nash walk for nothing set a bad precedent. Since then have we made one move that didn't cost us more than we gained?

[cinemablend]

Nobody wants to come to Dallas. Ever.

[dangirwin]

Originally Posted by MavsWiLLHaVeRinGs

I've read rumors that Lebron has told people that Dallas is a potential place he would like to go as well as New York, and New Jersey, maybe just because he's such a big Dallas Cowboys fan. It seems highly unlikely still though.

He said that cause he was interested in playing with a point guard like Devin Harris.

oops.

d

[Kidd Karma]

Originally Posted by MavsWiLLHaVeRinGs

I've read rumors that Lebron has told people that Dallas is a potential place he would like to go as well as New York, and New Jersey, maybe just because he's such a big Dallas Cowboys fan. It seems highly unlikely still though.

Yea, I read this too. The Lakers were tossed in there too. Would take a miracle given the current CBA......but one of the reasons why LBJ was the leader of his class to take a 4 year opt out deal was to possibly maxmize their earnings when the current CBA came due. So who knows the league wants to encourage free agent movement and creates equality for max contracts.

[bobatundi]

Originally Posted by Dtownsfinest

How do you rebuild with no draft picks? If possible i'd love to clear cap space by trading some of these guys and getting draft picks. Outside of Dirk I don't think we can get any picks for any of these guys. Not 1st rounders anyway.

I disagree.

If--and for the record, I think it's too early to conclude this--but if the Mavs are still this awful come the trade deadline, I would bet Kidd's expiring deal could be flipped into at least one, if not two, first rounders. Maybe not lottery picks, but some team looking to cut costs could easily be talked out of a first rounder if it saves them $20MM+ next year (or creates cap room). Same true of Stack. Remember, Phoenix send two first-round picks to Seattle just for taking Thomas off their books.

Now, what would we have to take back on in contracts to make that happen? That might not be very palatable. The Mavs may have shown the most you can hope to accomplish by going down the path of continuously acquiring bad contracts...while the Knicks clearly show the downside. Starting to wonder if the Mavs are the Yankees...trade future potential for present above-average-but-not-great players, then get saddled with aging players & bad contracts, and no draft picks or youth to build around. Maybe the Mavs should hire Brian Cashman.

[Flacolaco]

I hate to tell you guys this, but Lyndon Baines Johnson is dead.

[FINtastic]

He still owes us though, the city of Dallas gave him a presidency, the least he could do is give us a good basketball team.

[Dtownsfinest]

Originally Posted by bobatundi

I disagree.

If--and for the record, I think it's too early to conclude this--but if the Mavs are still this awful come the trade deadline, I would bet Kidd's expiring deal could be flipped into at least one, if not two, first rounders. Maybe not lottery picks, but some team looking to cut costs could easily be talked out of a first rounder if it saves them $20MM+ next year (or creates cap room). Same true of Stack. Remember, Phoenix send two first-round picks to Seattle just for taking Thomas off their books.

Now, what would we have to take back on in contracts to make that happen? That might not be very palatable. The Mavs may have shown the most you can hope to accomplish by going down the path of continuously acquiring bad contracts...while the Knicks clearly show the downside. Starting to wonder if the Mavs are the Yankees...trade future potential for present above-average-but-not-great players, then get saddled with aging players & bad contracts, and no draft picks or youth to build around. Maybe the Mavs should hire Brian Cashman.

I doubt we'd get any 1st rounders for Kidd. I think at most all we can hope for is a Pau Gasol type deal. The only teams that want to clear cap space are ones that are rebuilding so they'll more than likely suck and have no intentions keeping Kidd around for big money.

[arsenalmavsfan]

Yay, my first post

Anyways, i think that if we are to have any realistic chance of getting Lebron in 2010, we need to keep Kidd.

Lebron stated the cities he wants to play in are New York, Dallas, LA, or Chicago. He obviously picked the major cities where he can expand his name and make more money, but why would he list dallas on there, it's gonna be tough competition to land his name.
As much as I hate to say it, we have to resign kidd for much less money if he's willing (he says he wants to stay), and hopefully that will help lure Lebron in.

If worse comes to worse, we can try and bring Chris Bosh back to his hometown!

[Underdog]

LeBron is going to Brooklyn - bank on it...

[arsenalmavsfan]

exactly^, if we have any chance of getting him, we have to keep kidd for cheap...

[SMC0007]

If we have any chance on getting Bron, we have to move to Brooklyn.

[arsenalmavsfan]

I say screw Lebron, him coming is a long shot. I'll settle for bosh, haha, even though that's gonna be a tough one too!