The NBA offseason is already here, and with the 2024 NBA Draft being less than a week away, the Dallas Mavericks have the chance to improve their roster around Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
The Mavs have already been linked to Bronny James in the draft, and if Nico Harrison’s draft dominance continues, Dallas is poised to add a player who can help them right now.
Harrison has been excellent in the draft over the last few years, and he excels at finding diamonds in the rough.
Mavericks GM Nico Harrison reveals who’s safe, who could be traded this summer
Harrison has made some of the best moves of the last decade as GM of the Mavs, and he revealed the players who will be safe from a trade this summer earlier this weekend at his end-of-season press conference.
Harrison said that the core of this Mavs roster is “intact” and that he “doesn’t see anything happening” to the top 7-8 players from this season who played the most minutes this season.
The top eight players in minutes per game from the regular season for Dallas were Doncic, Irving, P.J. Washington, Tim Hardaway Jr, Josh Green, Dereck Lively II, Derrick Jones Jr, and Daniel Gafford. That leaves Maxi Kleber, Dante Exum, Jaden Hardy, Dwight Powell, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, Markieff Morris, and A.J. Lawson as players who were outside the top eight in minutes per game during the regular season.
This top eight from the regular season slightly changed during the playoffs as Kleber leapfrogged Hardaway Jr. in minutes per game, and this lines up with the recent rumors about what Dallas is trying to do with Hardaway Jr. The Mavs are trying to trade Hardaway Jr. once again according to a recent report, and his time in Dallas looked like it was coming to an end in the playoffs.
Take this comment from Harrison with a grain of salt, as things can change quickly in the NBA, but it seems like the Mavs are satisfied with their core.
As they should be.
That core just took them all the way to the NBA Finals, and losing the core that took your team to the highest stage would be a big risk. If one were to take what Harrison said as gospel, you could assume that Doncic, Irving, Washington, Green, Lively II, Jones Jr., Gafford, and Kleber are likely sticking around while Exum, Hardy, Powell, Prosper, Morris, Hardaway Jr., and Lawson are players who could potentially get moved.
The Mavs seem confident with the core that they built over the last few years, and the players outside the core could be used in a trade to improve this roster. Re-signing Jones Jr. remains a priority for Dallas, and there have been no reports about the Mavs’ plans for free agent forward Markieff Morris.
Morris stepped up as a veteran leader for Dallas over the last season and a half, and now they have a tough decision to make regarding whether they want to bring him back or not.