The trade deadline is less than a week away, and the Mavericks are expected to be active. Following Anthony Davis\u2019s injury that derailed any trade talks for the 10-time All-Star, the focus has shifted to other key rotational pieces for the Mavericks. Naji Marshall, in particular, has been a player teams have reportedly been making calls on. Should the Mavericks consider dealing him? Should they hang onto him as a building piece around Cooper Flagg? Let\u2019s take a look at both sides.<\/p>\n
The Case for Trading Marshall<\/p>\n
Naji Marshall is a fan-favorite, and it\u2019s easy to see why. The six-year veteran forward is averaging career highs this season in points per game (14.7), rebounds (4.9), and assists (3.0). Marshall also ranks 16th in the NBA in field goal percentage at 54.4%. In his last seven games, he\u2019s averaging 20.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 4.5 assists. Half of his production this season is coming off the bench, all the more impressive, which makes him an attractive piece to many teams.<\/p>\n
The NBA doesn\u2019t have many Naji Marshalls anymore\u2014gritty, grindy, competitive guys who can do it all. Many fringe contenders are thirsty for wings, especially those that can create and defend. Marshall is a versatile wing who can guard one through four and can also be the catalyst for running an offense, especially coming off the bench. The playoffs rely heavily on bench depth, and Marshall is the perfect missing piece many teams could talk themselves into pursuing.<\/p>\n
The Mavericks have been adamant in the asking price for Marshall – at least one future first round pick, according to NBA Insider Marc Stein. It\u2019s widely believed some teams would be willing to meet Dallas\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n
Naji Marshall just turned 28. Cooper Flagg just turned 19. Every roster building decision the Mavericks make moving forward should be based on Flagg\u2019s timeline. Although Marshall is a fun watch and a great locker room guy, Dallas has to prioritize accumulating future assets to build around Flagg. If a team calls offering a decent first round pick selection, the Mavs should consider taking it.<\/p>\n
The Nico Harrison timeline and vision of competing now is done and out the window. The focus should be on building a championship team around Flagg\u2019s timeline. Naji Marshall doesn\u2019t fit that. The second part of this is the money. Marshall is on the second year of his team-friendly deal of $27 million over three years. After next season, He\u2019ll be due a much larger pay day. As of now, Dallas doesn\u2019t have the financial flexibility for a Marshall pay raise. And even if they did, giving a larger contract to a player that would be about to turn 30 doesn\u2019t make much sense.<\/p>\n
Dallas has an opportunity to surround Flagg with younger talent that fits with his timeline. Teams are calling, and the Mavs should be listening.<\/p>\n
The Case for Keeping Marshall<\/p>\n
The other side of the coin is keeping him and hoping the Mavericks can flip other players like Daniel Gafford, Klay Thompson, and Anthony Davis. Doing so would give Dallas opportunities to accumulate future picks while finding financial flexibility. Dallas can\u2019t be bad and be a second-apron team. That\u2019s a nightmare scenario.<\/p>\n
Keeping a guy like Naji Marshall could be beneficial for Dallas\u2019s hopes in getting back into the playoff picture for next year. As of now, Dallas does not control its own pick from 2027 through 2030. Meaning the Mavs have no motivation to be bad and hope for more draft luck. Going into next season, the organization will likely want to refocus on competing in the West once again.<\/p>\n
Naji Marshall would be a key player in a deep (and hopefully healthier) roster next season. Kyrie Irving coming back would fix many of the point guard woes the Mavs have endured this season. Plug in a healthy (again – hopefully) Dereck Lively II, plus Max Christie, P.J Washington, and year two of Cooper Flagg, you have some real pieces that could make Dallas at minimum a .500 team next season. Dallas would also have a top 10 pick from the 2026 draft to add to this mix. And what if the Mavericks don\u2019t trade Anthony Davis? All of a sudden, you could talk yourself into this team being a top six team in the West next season. Naji Marshall would be an important piece of that roster.<\/p>\n
Marshall is also a durable player. He\u2019s only missed one game this season and is the definition of reliable when it comes to health in Dallas (and boy, have the Mavs needed it). He shows up, plays hard every night, competes, and hits floaters in his sleep. Naji Marshalls don\u2019t just grow on trees and having his energy on both ends is crucial if the Mavs want to take a big leap forward in the win column next year.<\/p>\n
If you look at the roster and think a healthy Mavericks team could contend next year, it\u2019s easy to see Naji Marshall being a part of that. Dallas will still have to make moves to create more financial flexibility, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily have to involve Naji Marshall. It would get more complicated at the end of next season once his contract is set to expire, but that\u2019s a bridge that could be crossed at that time. For now, he\u2019s been a silver lining in a largely disappointing season for Dallas.<\/p>\n
Trade Deadline is February 5th<\/p>\n
The trade deadline is next Thursday, February 5th, at 3 PM EST. The Mavericks have some important decisions to make. Perhaps the most important is should Dallas keep Marshall and try to run it back next year with a healthier roster? Or reshape the timeline around Cooper Flagg and focus on the future?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The trade deadline is less than a week away, and the Mavericks are expected to be active. Following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,166,64135,12249,6],"class_list":["post-573007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-mavericks","tag-basketball","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dallasmavericks","tag-mavericks","tag-mavericks-trade-rumors","tag-mavericks-rumors","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115990069612872241","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}