Bobby Marks On Dallas Mavs’ Approach To Anthony Davis Trade, Building Around Cooper Flagg, & More

Bobby Marks On Dallas Mavs’ Approach To Anthony Davis Trade, Building Around Cooper Flagg, & More

ESPN NBA front office insider with over 20 years of NBA front office experience. You can find him on the worldwide leader ESPN friend of the DLLS mass podcast. He is Bobby Marks. Bobby, what’s going on? How are we doing guys? Doing well. Doing well. Thank you so much for taking the time with us once again on our show today. Um let’s just start here. The Mavericks are a mess in a little bit of a mess right now with their financial situation. Draft capital as well. 30,000 foot view. Let’s start here. Bobby Mars gets thrown into the Mavericks front office. What is he doing day one and over the next few months to try to start to help clean up what’s happening here? Yeah, I mean I I think I mean as you guys know I mean the goal is to get Anthony back on the court. Um I mean that’s the I think that’s the priority. I don’t know how much poll I have that or Matt Ricardi or Michael Finley. I think that’s probably going to be up to the medical department and certainly ownership u as far as you know signing off on that. But I think that’s the I think that’s the that’s the first goal here. I I think there’s going to be a point in the season where you’re probably going to have to pick a direction as far as where you’re going here. I think you as if this continues to go this direction then you are likely positioning yourself to try to have the best possible draft pick in June. I mean that’s the reality or when we get to May with the with the lottery just based on what the future holds where you don’t have control of your first round pick until 2031. So here’s your last big crack at it again um to add somebody around uh around Cooper. It’s a little bit of a challenge as you have Anthony on your books and Kyrie still hurt and you’re waiting for him to come back here. Um, so I think that’s as I think, you know, with Nico not there anymore, things have changed drastically. I would think I think you are um, you know, we heard the three to four year timeline or two to three year timeline now. I think it’s more about building out for the future. I think it’s probably building around Cooper and and putting the right pieces around him. I think there are some pieces on this roster. I heard you guys talking about Max earlier. Um, and that’s a decision they’ll have next summer that that the I was looking um at his extension number. It’s 4 for93 is the mo is the most they can offer him. So, it’s roughly a 23 to$24 million average here. But, I think I think there are good things on this roster already, but I do think getting on the court um whether it’s something you want to do down the road and you’re looking to move him. Uh we wrote a piece yesterday and we kind of started to do a little bit of uh research around a league what his value is. His value is not high right now. I mean that’s that’s the reality of when you play only 15 games and you’re owed a bunch of money down the road and you’re extension eligible coming up this summer. Um I don’t see you getting back well you’ll never get back what you what you gave up for him but I don’t see um you know that the um you know the high value in Anthony Davis right now until he gets on the court. But I think, as I said, I think it’s all about putting the right pieces around Cooper moving forward. They kind of face this problem though, Bobby, because you know, Mark Stein, who isn’t here today, unfortunately, again, he’s ducked you twice. I know. Every time I come on, Stein, I’m getting a, you know, a complexion here. You know, he’s he’s just hiding. But, uh, you know, Mark has laid out that basically in order for the Mavs to get what they deem to be fair or equal value for AD. He’s not only got to get back on the court, but he’s got to stay healthy for a prolonged period of time, which is really risky for any player. Everyone is getting hurt right now, even guys that have played a lot of games. Um, but the the deeper problem than that is, let’s say AD gets healthy and then plays 25 straight games. Well, the Mavs might accidentally win a lot of those games, thereby hurting the tank efforts. So, it’s they’re in this like there’s like this gridlock problem right now. Um, so if you were GM or or you know, can you try and explain to fans why that might be actually the best course of action even if it results in a few extra wins as opposed to trading him now from a position of very, you know, kind of non-existent leverage. Yeah. I mean, I think it’s it’s a matter of um how does he fit in long term, right? if you figure he doesn’t fit long term as far as what you’re trying to do um a the only way that you’re going to move off for him um is going to be um getting him out on the court and if that’s getting a couple more wins I think that’s probably the risk that you’re going to take. I think it’ll be interesting when he gets back where’s Dallas in the standings. I think we’re certainly seeing separation. And I don’t think you’re going to get you’ll ever get to where Brooklyn is in Indiana and and the Wizards, you know, teams that have one and two wins here. Um, but as you know with the lottery, anything can happen if you’re in that I don’t know six to 10 range here uh with with that. But yeah, I I do think it is, as I said, a priority to get um to get Anthony on the court. Uh because teams want to see him healthy. Um you know, there’s there’s basically kind of three different timelines with Anthony. what we saw um hit with him in Los Angeles which was certainly good. He played the most games in 23 24 and he was earned all NBA and defensive all defense. Um and then we saw him with the trade as far as the limited body of work and then what kind of the future is going to hold if a team is willing to give up something of significance. They want to know that their a player can sustain um you know him being on the court. And I think you mentioned, you hit it right on the head, like the league is at an interesting part right now because the pace is so fast, right? We see a lot of groins and calf strains and hamstrings and stuff like that. And I think that’s probably why you’re being they’re being extra cautious is um the last thing you want to do is putting him out there and all of a sudden he’s set back for another couple weeks. But at the end of the day, might that might be if you’re positioning yourself for draft position, that might be I guess a blessing there. And then that parlays into what happens with Kyrie, right? Like Kyrie’s timeline as far as when he comes back from from the injury. So, a lot of questions uh that this uh co-inter GM front office is going to have to figure out right now and certainly ownership is going to have to figure out in the in the next uh in the next few weeks. Yeah. Hey, Bobby. Uh, I appreciate you for joining the show again. Um, so I’m very interested in Klay Thompson. You know, shooting kind of career lows across the board at this point. He’s, you know, now on the bench for the Mavericks. Now, he has, you know, had a couple of good games as of late off of the bench, but he’s on a, you know, a a decentsized contract with someone of his stature at this point. What can the Mavs do about somebody like Klay Thompson? Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. I I kind of keep a journal of notes before the the season starts on just things to watch. And the one thing I had for Clay, it was kind of was has father time caught up with him just because I you started to see some trends in Golden State and I think you saw some trends last year. Um and of course he has not gone off to a great start although he’s played a little bit better the last um last couple games here. It’s a big number. I mean it’s I I know it’s not max number but it’s still a 1617 million player. Um, it’s a guaranteed contract next year. Um, as I say, any player in this in this league is tradable. You’re not going to get a first round pick for him. Um, I think it’s a matter of what the need is. Um, you know, is there a playoff team that could use Klay Thompson in the playoffs and still provide value. I think that’s probably what you’re more targeting here. Um, I think it’s almost like, you know, hey, can you break up that contract? I mean, listen, they know we know they need a point guard and they need another creator on this roster to make the offense flow a little bit better here. And I think that’s hard to get with Klay’s number, but I do think if this team is u out of it come fe uh January and early February, then that’s going to be the guy that you’re going to try to parlay into something even if you break that contract up into a couple guys. When you look at the overall financial situation with the Mavericks is a team that’s running up against the second apron. What does the next year or two start to look like for them as they project out with Cooper Flag being here potentially building around him about how they can start to work around the margins to get themselves into a a more decent financial situation here? It’s it’s not good. I mean, it’s not good at all. It’s probably it’s probably the most dire that it’s been ever in franchise history. We uh in the article that we have on ESPN.com on Monday, we took a look we we look at next year what the offseason is going to look at. Listen, Dallas finishes in a luxury tax this year. They’re going to be a repeater tax next year. I mean, you know, four out of five years, you know, you you pay a significant penalty. The tax, it doesn’t have as much of a bite as you guys know about, you know, the apron rules. The second apron has got a lot of bite to it. You’re looking at being in the apron. you’re looking at potentially paying I think we figured out the number. It was like 370 in salary and luxury tax for next year’s roster when you look at it. Wow. Because Sure. Yeah. I mean you’re you’re you’re it’s going to be the it would be the biggest tax penalty in franchise history. I think it’s 150 million $160 million. Um you look at PJ’s extension starting to kick in. um you know certainly with with Anony’s and and um Kyrie’s and you got a bunch of guys making 134 million and the numbers begin to add in um and then when you factor in your draft pick which is probably around 10 to 12 million that’s where you’re looking at it. So, you’re looking at being a Second Apron team, um being in a luxury tax again. Um you know, you’d basically have the veteran minimum um exception, which isn’t the end of the world because you’ve got 12 guys under contract. So, it’s not like you got to go out and sign five or six guys there. Um but yeah, finances are uh not great when you’re looking at for Dallas next summer. I do want to just jump in and say I’m relieved to hear that the max number is actually 493. I was worried that it was gonna be like 70 or 75. It’s it’s it’s 140% off the um the off the average player salary. So, is 140% now? Yeah, it changed CBA. So, listen, the rules are the rules are better. Are the rules perfect? No. I mean, I would love u and I think the Lakers would probably love this too, that you can offer the player an extension based on his years of service in a league. So if if if you’re Max Christie, the first year of his extension could be up to 25% of the salary cap. If you’re Austin Reeves in Los Angeles, it can be up to 25%. It’s not capp at a certain number. If you’ve established bird rights, I think that would give, you know, so you’re not, you know, hey, let’s cross our fingers and hopefully he takes it, you know, like a good deal or let, you know, we get into free agency and, you know, like Austin Reeves in Los Angeles can say this past summer, hey, yeah, I want to be a Laker. But when your when your value skyrockets and some team rebuilding team comes in and offers I don’t know four years $180 million you be like wait a minute that’s making $40 million. So I do think that I’d love to tweak the extension rules here but yeah it is a little bit higher. It’s uh it’s right around 93 million. First year is at 20 almost 21 and the last year is right around 26. That is way better than like starting at 14 and a half or something. Yeah. No, no, it’s definitely better. See, I don’t bring all doom and gloom to this show. Okay. Appreciate that. Um, I’ll let you go on this. We talked about restaurant reviews the last time uh you were with us. Uh, where would you characterize the uh the restaurant uh renovation for the Mavericks at this point? That’s a good question. I would say they have a terrific chef uh in Cooper. Although I I saw some people think he would be the sixth best prospect in this year’s draft and I chuckled on that. Uh I don’t know where the hell that came from. I’m like the last two weeks. Um I have a terrific chef in Cooper. Um, and the the support staff and the rest of the staff is uh either on strike or uh injured or everything else is not there’s nothing else that’s there with it. But I I listen I I put it up um I think after they beat Portland. They’re three and eight in clutch games. You guys know this. I mean, like the ability to finish and I think a lot of it just becomes like they just need somebody out there to organize the offense a little bit. Um, we see a lot of uh 101 and ISO down the stretch at some of these games here. I think last night was a throwaway game because it’s a backtoback and you’re going to Minnesota and some guys didn’t play here, but it’s a work in progress. I had higher hopes on this team um coming into this year because I believed even with um Kyrie out their depth um I like their depth. Um I was I was bu I bought into their depth here. I thought they had enough sustainable but a lot of that had to do with um you know AD staying on the court and un unfortunately he hasn’t been able to do that. Bobby this was terrific stuff. We appreciate you taking that time out of your very busy schedule to join us here on the DLS Mavs podcast. We’ll make sure Stein’s on the next time you get on this show because we told her like look Bobb’s coming on. He’s like ah I won’t be able to. It’s like that when I at ESPN I used to well I still do get up but I would always go and get up and Mike Greenberg would always be on vacation and I’d be like does this guy ever come on when I’m like that? So actually Steiny in I saw Steiny in LA uh two weeks ago. He was out there when San Anton was out there and everything like that. So I know I know he still likes me and everything. Okay, good. Good. Glad to know. Bobby, appreciate the time as always. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you so much. Thank you. Talk to you.

ESPN salary cap expert and former NBA executive Bobby Marks joins the show to discuss the Dallas Mavericks’ financial challenges, the strategy behind if (or when) to trade Anthony Davis, managing a potential rebuild around Cooper Flagg, and much more.