Dallas Mavericks: 2025 Offseason Priorities and Salary Cap Dynamics (Post-lottery update)
The Mavericks need to resolve Kyrie Irving's contract situation while also finding a suitable point guard rotation in his absence. Also, implications of winning the 2025 draft lottery.
The Dallas Mavericks realistically gave themselves two years to compete for a championship after trading Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis. Unfortunately, that window may already be closed thanks to Kyrie Irving’s ACL injury. The hope is that he will return by January, but it’s possible the Mavericks could be too far behind in the standings to make the playoffs.
Grant Afseth of
joined the podcast last week to discuss the Mavericks and their upcoming offseason. His newsletter contains invaluable reporting on all things Mavericks. I highly recommend subscribing to it.Their direction and prospects of being a legitimate contender were discussed, as well as decisions regarding key players. It’s a good companion piece for this preview, which will take a deeper look at contractual decisions for some of their top players. It also will touch on the implications of the Mavericks winning last night’s lottery and where they could go from here.
The Mavericks are heading into the offseason with 14 players under contract, including the first overall selection in this year’s draft. Their only free agents are Spencer Dinwiddie, Dante Exum, and two-way players Kessler Edwards and Kai Jones. They got the majority of their work done putting this roster together. The finishing touches from the trade deadline were supposed to allow them to run the roster back simply.
The injury to Irving changes that. They lack a legitimate lead guard for at least the first half of the season. They are unlikely to replace Irving’s impact, but will need to acquire competence at that position this summer. That will be their top priority.
They are heading into the offseason over the luxury tax and both aprons. Their lottery luck completely changes their outlook while significantly increasing their payroll thanks to the large salary the first overall selection has.
They’ll only be able to sign a free agent with the minimum salary if they do not get below the second apron. And if they do but stay above the first apron, they’ll only have the $5.7 million taxpayer mid-level exception (T-MLE) to sign a player.
They likely need to bring in two point guards to stabilize the position. They should be able to sign a good veteran for the T-MLE or the minimum. Some guards listed in the podcast that could be available include Dennis Schroder, Chris Paul, Tyus Jones, Malcolm Brogdon, and D’Angelo Russell. They would represent the best-case scenario with their resources, but may need the $14.1 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception (NT-MLE) to sign them.
But adding one of those types of guards won’t be enough. They should probably acquire another one, and their best avenue for that is trade. There are several ways they could acquire another guard, depending on how many assets they’re willing to trade. They could trade up to two first-round picks, including the first overall selection in this year’s draft, two second-round picks, and up to two first-round pick swaps.
They may want to consider getting below the first apron. That would open up the full mid-level exception and their older trade exceptions, including ones worth $11 million and $7 million. However, they cannot use any unless they get below the first apron. Trade exceptions created from previous seasons cannot be used by teams above the first apron.
They’d also be able to increase their payroll in a subsequent trade by getting below the first apron. All those options can be used as long as the Mavericks stay below the first apron, since all those transactions trigger the hard cap.
One way the Mavericks could below the second apron and closer to the first is by negotiating a new contract with Kyrie Irving. He has a $43 million player option that he was expected to decline, but now that decision is complicated by his injury. He could still pursue a new deal, but it could be different than whatever both sides may have had planned.
Irving could re-sign at a reduced salary for 2025-26 in exchange for long-term security. This year’s free agency represents a unique opportunity for him. That’s because at 33 years old, this is the last time he could sign a five-year deal since it will take him through the end of his age-38 season1.
The number of years Irving receives will be the more fascinating aspect of the negotiation. Do the Mavericks have any plans to open up cap flexibility in future seasons? Do they simply want to align Irving’s contract with Davis’ over the next three seasons? These are all important aspects the Mavericks must consider.
A five-year deal may sound risky for a veteran coming off a torn ACL, but it doesn’t need to be fully guaranteed. Chris Paul’s deal with the Suns in 2021 could be the blueprint for such a deal. A multi-year deal in the mid-$30 million range annually with non-guarantees on the backend makes sense for both sides. The Mavericks protect themselves from any significant decline, and Irving gets several opportunities to continue earning lucrative salaries with his performance or a trade that requires his guarantee to be increased.
Irving could also pick up his player option and extend at any point next season. The Mavericks could pursue that option so they could first see how he performs after coming off such a devastating injury.
A salary reduction from Irving may not give them enough space below the first apron to acquire a high-salaried guard with one of their trade exceptions2. They would then need to subsequently trade another player to create additional flexibility. Dwight Powell has a $4 million player option that he is expected to pick up. Trading him, in conjunction with an Irving pay cut, could give the Mavericks all the flexibility they need.
But whether they’re above or below the first apron, their most likely path to a legitimately impactful starting guard is through trade. Specifically, trading a high-salaried veteran player to meet the value and salary matching requirement while staying below the first apron.
The Mavericks have emphasized their abundance of big men as a core identity. They still haven’t given the group enough of a test sample to know if it works. But what happens if they conclude that Davis should be used more at center? His role at power forward, as well as the likely inclusion of another one in Cooper Flagg, complicates P.J. Washington’s role. A larger load at center for Davis would make one of Daniel Gafford or Dereck Lively II redundant.
Trading a big man seems like the logical path for a guard. Gafford’s larger $14.4 million salary gives them a pathway to a higher-salaried guard. They could also aggregate him with other salaries to acquire a player earning more, as long as they finish below the second apron since aggregation triggers the hard cap. But they would have to send out more salaries than they’re taking back if they remain over the first apron.
An underlying element that could lead to a trade of one of their veteran bigs is extension negotiations. Both Washington and Gafford are in the final years of their contracts and could extend at any time. Both are eligible for maximum extensions for roughly four years, $90 million. The podcast contains a discussion on how both players project if extended on such deals.
Any extension signed need to age favorably and increase the players’ respective trade value. However, that maximum extension would prevent either player from being traded for six months. The maximum they could receive while keeping trade-eligibility is three years, roughly $54 million3. That seems like a fair value for Gafford compared to other starting centers, but Washington could command more. But a trade involving at least one of these players seems likely now after last night’s lottery results.
The Mavericks got a lifeline by getting the first overall selection after such a disastrous season. They would look like absolute geniuses right now if they got an actual return worthy of Doncic’s value. But the flipside of that is that they wouldn’t have gotten the first overall selection if just one detail played out differently. Everything happened for a reason.
The Mavericks shortened their long-term window by trading Doncic. They became an older team with no young prospect who could be the face of the team in a couple of years. Lively is a terrific player, but as a complementary piece. He doesn’t project to be a top offensive option.
The end of their planned window coincides with the beginning of the period where they lose control of their draft picks. They have outgoing first-round picks in 2027 and 2029, and outgoing first-round pick swaps in 2028 and 2030. They will run into challenges fielding a competitive team during that period.
Their future was delicate, but now they have a new face of the franchise to lead them through the back half of the decade.
We’re now left wondering if the organization that signed off on trading Doncic can be trusted with making the right decision with this opportunity. As Brian Windhorst mentioned shortly after the Mavericks won the lottery, they have always been interested in Giannis Antetokounmpo. They probably could’ve swapped Doncic for him this offseason if they waited a little longer.
The Mavericks hoped to get just one of Antetokounmpo or Davis for Doncic. They are probably salivating at the idea of pairing both with Irving. They have the salaries to aggregate to make the money work. They’ll want to send out more salaries than they’re taking back to avoid being hard capped to the second apron. This would give them more flexibility to fill out the backend of the roster.
Would a package featuring Flagg, Lively, Washington, Thompson, Gafford, Marshall, the Lakers’ 2029 first-round pick, and Mavericks’ 2031 first-round pick be the best offer for Antetokounmpo? Perhaps, but it would be a bigger, complicated trade that involves multiple teams taking back a lot of those players. The Bucks will likely want established veterans since they also don’t have control of their draft through 2030.
Does it even make sense for the Mavericks to gut their roster like this? Probably not, but it may be required for them to top the Spurs’ best possible offer for Antetokounmpo, which also got much stronger with lottery luck of their own. If they learned anything from the past three months, it’s probably not to rock the boat and understand what they’ve got when it’s right in front of them.
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The Over 38 rule adds mechanisms that disincentivize teams from signing players to contracts that would take them past their age-38 season.
Irving’s current contract has $2 million in unlikely incentives. Eliminating them in a new contract would add additional apron savings. For example, if he reduces his $43 million salary down to $35 million, the Mavericks save $10 million when accounting for the eliminated incentives.
Any extension that exceeds a 120 percent raise on the starting salary, four seasons in length (including the current season), or 5 percent raises in subsequent seasons triggers a six-month trade restriction.