'Melo to the Mavs....A Delirious Daydream or a Possible Reality?



Dirk and Melo making championship plans?

One of the beautiful parts about being a Mavs fan is to know that Donnie Nelson and Mark Cuban are hardly ever satisfied with their current roster, and they are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to acquire the talent that they desire.  One obvious talent that any gm and owner would be crazy not to desire is the very available Carmelo Anthony.    The disgruntled Nuggets star small forward can be had if the team is right and if the price is right. 

Concerning a possible ‘Melo to the Mavs deal, the questions that we have to ask ourselves are the following:   Would Carmelo want to come to Dallas and are we able to pay the price that the Nuggets would demand for their best player?

Let’s answer these questions one at a time.

# 1- Would Carmelo want to come to Dallas?

Just like any superstar that demands to be traded, he’s going to have to be pleased with the team that he’s going to.  Ideally, it appears that Carmelo would like to go back east, specifically to New York.  While we have our location working against, we have a number of things going our way.  Here’s why I believe we can convince Carmelo to come play in the D-Fdub.

·         The Mavs would still have the talent to compete for a championship this year.

·         The Mavs would easily meet his desire for a max contract extension.

·         The Mavs would also be willing to get Carmelo eventually to New York. 

Wait, what?  The Mavs would be willing to get Carmelo eventually to New York?  How does that happen and how does that help us?

In convincing Carmelo, I don’t think it would be a stretch to be able to communicate to him that after this season, we would work to facilitate a trade to a New York team for him.  We’d essentially be renting Carmelo for this season to bolster our talent for a championship run.  Then, during the offseason we’d get Carmelo’s wish list of destinations and begin the framework of a trade. 

Why would Carmelo want to go through all of this trouble?  That’s easy.  He’d get a chance to win a championship this year with Dallas, he’d get the max contract extension that he’d be risking if he became a free agent, and he’d still get to play in one of his top destinations for next season.   

Why would the Mavs want to only rent Carmelo for one year?  If Carmelo wants to stay here, then we keep him.  If not, it makes a lot of sense to rent him for the rest of the year and then trade him before the start of next season.    Even if Carmelo wanted to bolt to New York next year, we’d be able to at least recoup the draft picks that we gave up to get him.  On top of that, we’d be able to get some pretty solid talent to replace whatever we had to give up in order to get Carmelo.  Our window of opportunities is closing as Dirk ages, so it seems logical to give it a go with ‘Melo and then trade him to where he wants to go for whatever we can get from that team, even if it doesn’t end up being fair market value.

            Now, on to our second question:

# 2- Are we able to pay the price that the Nuggets would demand for ‘Melo?

I can’t speak for Donnie or Cuban, but I can speak for myself and for some other Mavs fans out there that we are willing to pay just about whatever price asked to get Carmelo….even if we only get him for the rest of this season.  The only price that isn’t logical to pay is Dirk.  If they wanted Dirk, and we had no guarantee that ‘Melo would be staying with us permanently, we’d have to pull out and look at other options.  The Big German is just too good, and Carmelo would need him to make a true run at the title.   

So we’ll start with the idea that we’d give up everything except Dirk for Carmelo (although I’d hate to lose Tyson Chandler because of how amazing he’s been this year).  Obviously, we want to give up as little as possible to get the deal done, so I’m not proposing we overpay, but I do want to cut to the chase and discuss what we would and could offer to the Nuggets. 

With any offer, we’ll also have to throw in the obligatory two first round picks and the max amount of cash allowable to send to the Nuggets.  These seem like small prices to pay in light of the fact that our 1^st round picks are always very late in the draft and with an understanding that it seems like you can always buy a first round pick when the time comes (just like the Mavs did this year to acquire Dominique Jones). 

                Now, let’s look at the Nuggets wish list in any deal for Anthony. 

# 1- They’ll want to rid themselves of as many bad contracts as possible.  Unfortunately for us, they don’t have that many for use to take on.  Al Harrington is signed for several more years for too much money, so he’s an option for us to take in order to entice the Nuggets to deal us ‘Melo.

# 2- They’ll want young, promising talent.  Players like Shawn Marion and Brendan Haywood won’t really tickle their fancy since they’ll be in a rebuilding mode without their top star.  Do we have any young, promising talent?  Roddy B, Dominique Jones, and Ian Mahinmi all fit that description.

Roddy is either going to be a special talent in this league, or an injury prone tease.  Dominique Jones is raw, but he has shown flashes of great potential in the summer league and in his brief playing time with the Mavs this year.  Ian Mahinmi is a big man who is gaining more and more credibility as a very capable young center.   

# 3- They’ll also want cap friendly contracts, especially those that are expiring.  For instance, Caron Butler’s injury was a huge blow to the Mavs this year, but Caron can still help us this year.  His contract is up at the end of this season so the Nuggets can choose to either try and re-sign Caron (if they like him that much) or they can just let him walk and save the money.   Trading Caron would allow the Mavs to give the Nuggets the salary help that they desire without giving up any key piece for this year’s title run.

Now, with all that said, what can we actually offer the Nuggets?  Below is what I feel would be our best offer for a Mavs/Nuggets trade.  Keep in mind that as I stated earlier, I don’t want to overpay.  If we can get the deal done without some of the pieces included, then that’s all the merrier. 

Here’s the proposal:

The Mavericks trade: Roddy B, Dominique Jones, Ian Mahinmi, and the expiring contracts of DeShawn Stevenson, Brian Cardinal and Caron Butler.  The Mavs would also include two first round picks and the max allowable in cash considerations.


The Nuggets trade: Carmelo Anthony and Al Harrington. 

The screen clip from realgm.comshowshow the trade would affect each team and satisfies the conditions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. 


Why would the Nuggets do this deal?  The Nuggets would get three players that are young, cheap, and loaded with potential in Roddy B, Dominique Jones, and Ian Mahinmi.  They would also rid themselves of the bad contract of Al Harrington.  They would have players, picks, and cap flexibility to rebuild their team after the Carmelo Era in Denver comes to a close.


Why would the Mavs do this deal?  This trade would put the Mavs in a great position to win it all this year.  Our starting lineup, with the addition of Carmelo (and the recently signed Peja), would be incredible with Jason Kidd, Carmelo, Peja, Dirk, and Tyson Chandler. 

Our bench would still be intact with JET, Marion, Haywood, and JJ Barea.  In fact, the bench would get stronger with addition of Al Harrington. 

With all that said, it’s possible to see that  a trade of Carmelo Anthony to the Mavs is a win-win-win.  The Mavericks get a team that is much better suited to make a title run this year, Carmelo gets his money and his desire to be back east met (eventually), and the Nuggets get valuable assets to start the rebuilding process.  The only thing left is to get Donnie Nelson on the phone to make the offer.