Grade the Trade: Mavericks to land Warriors forward in blockbuster Deal

 

The Dallas Mavericks have epitomized the term “up-and-down” recently as they’ve gone 7-6 through their last 13 games. It’s been a particularly rough stretch for the Mavericks as they’ve dealt with an abundance of injuries from seemingly everyone on the roster at some point over the last couple of weeks.

Luka Doncic just returned to action against the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night after an ankle sprain sidelined him from Dallas’ previous three games, but it didn’t matter much as Kyrie Irving and the rest of Dallas’ role players looked extremely out of sorts offensively in the 127-110 loss.

Dallas has luckily regained most of their players who have been dealing with injuries in the last month or two though, barring Dante Exum who is still out with a right plantar fascia sprain.

Mavericks land Warriors forward and young flyer in blockbuster trade proposal

Hopefully, Dallas has already had there fair share of run-ins with the injury bug this past month or so, as they can’t sustain large chunks of their rotation missing for elongated periods of time. Dallas has been rumored to be trying to trade for another forward to address some of their defensive issues, so one silver lining that we can take from this recent stretch is the fact that it gave us (as well as Nico Harrison) further insight into some of Dallas’ flaws.

Dallas needs a variety of things in a trade, but at the top of the totem pole is certainly where wing defense would lay in that equation. In this mock trade, Dallas finally gets their coveted wing defender from the Golden State Warriors.

Here we grade the trade for both teams, and analyze whether or not it’s in each team’s best interest to make the trade or not.

Mavericks land Warriors’ Andrew Wiggins in five-player blockbuster

In this potential trade deadline blockbuster first proposed by James Piercy of nbaanalysis.net, the Mavericks receive Andrew Wiggins for Maxi Kleber and Richaun Holmes in a straight two-for-one swap.

Piercy prefaces that the Warriors would have incentive to do this because Wiggins is having a rough season and Golden State has a lot of money on their books committed across the board. We thought the trade was a little bleak overall though, so we expanded it to be more than just a swap of negative assets between the Mavericks and Warriors in this rendition below.

In this package, Dallas takes a chance on 28-year-old Andrew Wiggins, who is in the first year of a four-year $109 million contract. The Mavericks also get Moses Moody back in the trade, who is an intriguing third-year young wing with two-way potential. The Mavericks part with some substantial frontcourt depth in this trade as well as promising rookie Olivier-Maxence Prosper, but as long as Wiggins makes an impact defensively for Dallas then the Mavericks paid a pretty fair asking price in this trade considering they get a young asset of their own in return as well.

The Warriors have fell into a state of disarray recently at 18-22, and just had their matchup with Dallas on Friday postponed due to the unfortunate passing of their assistant coach Dejan Milojevic. Friday would’ve been a great dress rehearsal for Wiggins to impress in front of Dallas, but Dallas isn’t the only one who should be incentivized to make this trade.

The Warriors desperately need some backup big-man depth, as Kevon Looney and rookie Trayce Jackson-Davis are their only true centers at the moment. In this trade they get two decent backup bigs in Kleber and Holmes, both of whom still have some juice in the tank despite not being in Dallas’ rotation often this year due to injuries or other factors. They also get a young flyer of their own in Olivier Maxence-Prosper, as the Mavericks swap two impressive young wings who are both on the outskirts of their respective team’s rotations.

The Warriors biggest win is getting off Wiggins’ contract though, as he’s the odd man out of San Francisco given Golden State’s tight salary sheet. Now we’ll grade how both teams would fare if they were to go through with the trade.

Grading the trade for the Golden State Warriors

There have been rumors that the Warriors may need to combine Wiggins in aggregate in any trade they make with him because of how low his value may have stooped this season, so if we are going off of that barometer then this is a pretty good deal for Golden State. At almost .500, the Warriors are seeking to get back in the playoff picture despite the immense amount of adversity they’ve dealt with recently.

While Dallas desperately needs Wiggins’ defense or someone of his caliber on that end, Golden State has pretty stout wing defenders across the board right now and has struggled trying to sustain with Wiggins’ dwindling offensive production this season. Golden State likely wouldn’t be getting anything worth the extension they handed out to Wiggins at the beginning of the 2022-23 season, so they’d certainly be inclined to jump an opportunity to get a young player in Prosper as well as a second round pick in this trade.

The Warriors would free up some minutes for some of their promising young players who are warranting more minutes such as Jonathan Kuminga, and at least one of Kleber or Holmes would likely slot in as a capable backup center to Looney, especially given Kleber’s recent resurgence.

Parting with Moody would cause hesitation on Golden State’s end, but it’s not too egregious of an ask from Dallas when you consider that they’d replace him with a younger and lengthier Prosper, even if Prosper is less developed at this point in his career.

Potential starting lineup: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Jonathan Kuminga, Draymond Green, Kevon Looney

Golden State would answer lots of questions in regards to their rotation if they made this trade, which in turn would likely help bolster chemistry as the Warriors look to fight for a playoff spot.

They likely get an intriguing backup center, a very promising young wing in this trade, and some subtle draft compensation. It may not be an earth-shattering package going to Golden State, but given how much of an albatross Wiggins’ contract is for the Warriors, a trade like this can’t place anywhere lower than a B.

Grading the trade for the Dallas Mavericks

Despite the negative perception of Andrew Wiggins from large chunks of the basketball word, the former No. 1 overall pick of the 2014 NBA Draft would help this Mavericks team a lot.

Wiggins is extremely lengthy and has a prime muscular frame for a wing defender in the league, and those physical attributes are readily apparent when you turn on the film. Wiggins can defend 1-4, and he could be Dallas’ long coveted piece in terms of finding a wing capable of guarding some of the taller dynamic wings in the league.

Wiggins in shooting a rough 29.6 percent from 3-point land, but in Dallas’ offense he should get more open looks compared to in Golden State given the playmaking ability of Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic. Wiggins’ slashing ability would be extremely helpful as well as there’s not much of a fall-off from an athletic perspective between him and Mavericks’ current starting four-man Derrick Jones Jr .

There may be better options on the market for Dallas as far as finding defensive oriented wings goes, but if Wiggins was even average offensively than this trade would be a huge win for Dallas. Third-year player Moses Moody’s inclusion in this trade makes it extremely enticing for Dallas, as Moody has great length at 6-foot-6 and a lot of potential to become a good defender one day.

The Mavericks would part with Olivier-Maxence Prosper in this trade which would make many fans’ head scratch, but Moody arguably has more potential overall as a player. Moody is averaging 8.7 points and 3.1 rebounds per game in only a mere 13.7 minutes per game. He’s fallen out of place of Steve Kerr’s nightly rotation in favor of veterans, but he’d almost certainly have a role for Dallas off the bench, and may even give Josh Green a run for his money for the starting spot given his abilities as a one-on-one scorer.

Potential starting lineup: Kyrie Irving, Luka Doncic, Josh Green, Andrew Wiggins, Dereck Lively II

The Mavericks would have a much more complete roster if they made this trade, and could easily suffice without Kleber and Holmes as they’ve proven all season. Prosper has a lot of potential as a player so things could go haywire for Dallas in the long run, but they aren’t giving up any substantial draft capital in this trade and come away with their long-sought defender.

Wiggins and Moody would be a great haul for the price Dallas is paying, but Dallas does assume some subtle risk with how bad Wiggins has played offensively this season, so they receive an A- in this trade.