He's keeping the same core doesn't always really work, no matter how successful you were in prior years, because other teams get better, other teams make moves, and you get worse. So the big question now is like, what do you do next? What does Mark Cuban do Jalen Brunson. I've been doing a little mass school crunching the numbers today, crunching, doing some serious crunching, and lots of speculation about what Jalen Brunson is gonna do. Like we said, he had
a coming out party. He's gonna get paid, He's gonna get the bag, all the money, gonna get probably somewhere between twenty twenty five million dollars a year averaging sixteen to five and four single handedly at some points in times without Luca in that Utah series, getting them to win games that Let's be honest, if it wasn't for him, they probably would have lost the Jazz in the first round.
We wouldn't even be having this conversation.
Now, he's a free agent, a lot of speculation about what's gonna happen, what he's gonna do next. Right, interesting comment coming from Mark Cuban. He said we could he Jalen more than anybody, and I think he wants to stay here and that's what's important. The issue, though, is what's more important, which is the lack of cap space that this team has. And this is where the number of crunching comes involved.
Twofold issue.
Brunson says he wants to be a starter, okay, and right now he is a starter, But Dallas also traded for Spencer Dimwiddie. Spencer did when he's making a lot of money as well. Can't have them all on the floor at the same time, Folks, listen, should Jalen Brunson be a starter for the Dallas Maveris when he's like six feet t he's like six feet I don't know. Spencer Dinwiddy kind of makes Jalen Brunson a redundant asset.
And you got rid of Christaps Porzingis, which you needed off the books regardless, right, Not sure Jalen Brunson is interested in a secondary role playing second fiddle to Spencer Dimwiddie. And I'm not sure that Spencer Dimmidie's Dimwitty's that worse than Jalen Brunson. That man was in stint offense against the Warriors last night, he was the only one to cold score, and Jalen Brunson's minutes have nearly doubled since the bubble, right around thirty five minutes per game. But
how do they all three function together? Do they all three function together?
That doesn't even include the fact that.
Luca also needs help, So like, how does Dallas keep Brunson and get more help? How do they keep Brunson and not get any help and get anywhere closer to where they were? Any closer to the finals than they were this year? Especially when the Clippers are getting better, the Pelicans are getting better, the Nuggets are getting healthy. Like you've got, you know, obstacle after obstacle. I don't think that's what you want to do.
Baby.
Is the trio of Luca, Dinwiddie and Brunson good enough to get past the Warriors? No? Althy Grizzlies, no or revamped Sun's probably not?
So what up? What's what are you saying?
Mark Cuban Jalen future looking twenty five twenty to twenty five million a year with two years left on Dinwoody's twenty million dollars a year deal.
That's somewhere like forty forty five million dollars a year for those two guards.
If you resign Brunson, add in Tim Hardaway's twenty million dollar deal, Burton's at sixteen million, starting to get the feeling. Finny Smith at twelve million means the MAVs, without doing a thing, already sixty million dollars over the cap. That is a lot of money, and that is not including Brunson's money. Signing Brunson could mean sixty million dollars a
year in tax, in tax, not including his salary. When calculating how much the Mavericks need to pay to keep them as signing that they assuming they only sign up for twenty million, listen, don't believe me. You can go ahead,
Google Luxury tax calculator. Put one hundred and seventy one million dollars in for salary, which is one hundred and fifty one which is where they are now, plus twenty million dollars with Jalen Brunson, and that is eighty million dollars in tax plus salary that you now have to pay. Is Jalen Brunson worth eighty million dollars a year? That is some crazy Kelly Ubre like honestly, that's what That's what Golden State did last year with Kelly Ubre. Where'd that get them the play in tournament?
So what do you do?
You gotta get rid of Tim Hardaway. He makes a million, like millions and millions of too many dollars.
He's injured.
I don't even know what you do with him. Luca needs more help. The MAVs aren't even being a slightly quoy about needing a rim protector who could actually play defense on the wing and not have to play Maxie Clay bat five. They got their asses handed to them by Kevin Looney, and Kevon Looney is like a top thirty center in the NBA. So, folks, I don't mean to sell in the alarms, but things are. For a team that just went to the Western Conference finals, you're
in a pickle here. Rudy Gobert is being floated out.
That would be interesting.
I have some trade ideas in terms of how they get that done, but none of them include keeping Jalen Brunson. So I don't know what though Mark Cuban is saying, he's saying he's a liar.
He's a liar. He likes Jalen Brunson, but he's not gonna pay he he's on short take.
You think he's keeping Jalen Brunson for eighty million dollars. No, Brunson is great. I really like him. I think he's a good point guard. I think he's a good starting point guard, one of.
The best table setters in the league.
But I do not see him being paired with Luca and this team going anywhere. Not because they don't want him, not because they don't need him to some degree, but because they cannot afford him. They need to make more changes, not just keep this thing out and roll it all back. Where does he ends up end up? I don't know, Probably maybe the Knicks. He's an interesting two way guy. He works hard, he can shoot, he can set the table, he can play, make take the ball out of Julius
Randall's hand. Oh, which, God knows, we need that Kyrie. If he bolts, looks like the Nets will be in need of a point guard. That would be a nice, little spicy move. Who knows, Maybe Kyrie for Jalen Brunson and maybe another piece to make that math work, make the math math.
I don't know.
Maybe maybe some people think Brunson could end up as a Piston with a sign in trade with Jeremy Grant, which would be very interesting, Like a little trade Jeremy Grant for Jalen Brunson. Detroit gets better Matt MAVs get their rim protector.
And the question is if the Mavericks.
Do move on from Brunson, which they will, how do they construct a championship team Because anything less than a finals appearance now feels like an l and Luca has already gotten a taste of winning now and he doesn't want to.
Step back, and we know he needs to step.
Forward and then forward some more on a tread will in order for him to win some more meaningful games.
At the end of late game scenarios.
Yep, step forward on the treadmill, step back from the Luca, step away from Slovenia, which I've looked at on Google map Google images now looks amazing. Maybe bring a nutritionist with you when you go. Speculation now is if the MAVs are looking at zach Lavine Jeremy Grant.
Like I said, zach Lavine would be terrible.
I think Bradley Beal might be a nice option out of the two I think Grant is probably the better play. Like I said, lots of speculation about Rudy Gobert that would certainly solve some defensive issues.
Miles Turner has been linked to the MAVs man.
I don't know about Miles Turner and his health, though both would make Maxi Klayberg go by Bible.
Maybe he plays four man.
Regardless, they can't keep using Luca as much as they have for two straight years. Luca's usage rate is thirty seven percent, which is number one in the league over Joel m Beid. The number went up to forty percent in the playoffs. He cannot keep it up if the man like.
Look at him.
He looked exhausted in that first half that game, and it was like, hey, you're gonna go home if you don't start making some shots Luca, and they was like, oh yeah, this.
Is this is a closeout game.
You can't continue to carry a team on your back when you're forty pounds overweight without getting significantly tired. The Warriors targeted him on defense because he was out of shape in late game scenarios. He couldn't keep up and be the Lebron type player that Jason kidd wants him to be. He was cooked by the fourth quarter, game
after game. And you know, another issue is that Dallas was last in the NBA in pace of play this year because you know, Luca's fat, He's slow, and so fighting a way to get out of the transition might help.
Minimize a lot of the wear and tear on Luca.
Maybe play Luca off ball, find another person who can play make and get their own shots so that all the attention is not on Luca. Maybe give Dinwiddie permission to handle the ball and have him play some point guard a little bit too. And Dimwitty's a lot taller, a lot stronger than Jalen Brunson. No shade to Jalen Brunson, but do you think he's like five. It's just taller than him. So real quick about Spencer Dimwiddie though, as an aside, we know he's a weird guy.
Right.
This is what he said after the game. He said, before I got to Dallas, this team was connected. When they asked him like, what is the what are the Dallas Mavericks? What do you think about them? And he goes, when before I got here, they were connected. They look like a pretty connected team. After I got here, I'd say sexy because the sex appeal went way up. We're a good looking team now, man.
Have you seen his cydeburns?
They're not filled in yet. Like, maybe come on, Spencer never changed. This is the same guy who wanted his entire salary in crypto. By the way, that has gone from fifty thousand dollars per crypto to like eight thousand dollars. So maybe not take Spencer Dimwittie's advice on financial things anyway, interesting stuff happening with MAS. Can't wait to see what happens in Dallas and the offseason. All that I know for sure is that they are going to be