There\u2019s a specific kind of anxiety that lives in your phone now.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re at the grocery store or walking the dog or doing whatever normal people do in July when basketball isn\u2019t happening, and a notification slides down from the top of the screen. Shams Charania, ESPN. You see a player\u2019s name. Kyle Anderson. You see the years. You see the dollar figure. But you can\u2019t see the team. Not until you tap it. Not until you open the app and let the full post load and your stomach does that little half-second gymnastics routine while your brain screams please don\u2019t be Dallas, please don\u2019t be Dallas, please don\u2019t be…<\/p>\n
Oh, thank the basketball gods.<\/p>\n
This has happened to me at least five times in the last week. And every single time, the relief has been real, physical, almost spiritual. Because the Mavericks are having a quietly excellent offseason, and a huge part of what makes it excellent is what they haven\u2019t done.<\/p>\n
Masai Ujiri\u2019s front office drafted Morez Johnson Jr. at nine<\/a>. They grabbed Sergio de Larrea<\/a> later in the first round via trade. They appear committed to holding onto Kyrie Irving as he returns to the floor this year. They traded a heavily protected first-round pick and two future seconds for Santi Aldama<\/a>, a 25-year-old combo forward who averaged 14 points and nearly seven rebounds last year. They have a year-two Cooper Flagg who won\u2019t turn 20 until December. Dereck Lively II is reportedly 7\u20193\u201d now with a 7\u20199\u201d wingspan<\/a>. The positive ledger is long and it\u2019s real.<\/p>\n But I want to talk about the negative space. The signings that didn\u2019t happen. The alternate timeline.<\/p>\n The Darkest Timeline Has a Name<\/p>\n Because here\u2019s the thing: as dark as the actual timeline got after the Don\u010di\u0107 trade, we can imagine a darker one. A timeline where Nico Harrison and Jason Kidd are still running this franchise, scrolling through free agent lists with the same philosophical blinders that produced the worst trade in franchise history<\/a> and perhaps in professional sports.<\/p>\n Harrison\u2019s front office had a type. If you came up through the AAU circuit, if you were a sneaker-convention fixture, if you were a recognizable NBA name who could be acquired through a relationship rather than through rigorous evaluation, you were in the pipeline and on the dubious trade-target list, where Jrue was perilously close to the Joker<\/a>. If you were a 20-year-old guard lighting up the ACB in Spain? Probably not on the radar.<\/p>\n The Harrison regime shed its European connective tissue and never replaced it with an overseas find of its own. There was no impactful effort to scout or recruit international talent from overseas that turned over a single gem during that era. The scouting lens was narrowed in its final analysis to who Nico knew or approved of in the abstract, and the results looked like it.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s play a game. Let\u2019s look at a few free agent moves from the last week, imagine how each one might have played out in the somehow-still-here Harrison timeline, and collectively exhale.<\/p>\n Kyle Anderson \u2192 Toronto Raptors (1 year, $3.9 million)<\/p>\n Anderson is 32, entering his 13th season, and has been traded to five different teams in the last two years. He\u2019s a solid, unconventional player. In the Harrison timeline, Slow Mo might have been the starting small forward, with Nico calling it \u201cveteran leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n Have a nice season in Toronto, Kyle.<\/p>\n Mike Conley \u2192 Boston Celtics (1 year, minimum)<\/p>\n Conley is 38 years old and entering his 20th NBA season. He averaged a career-low 4.5 points in 18 minutes a game last year. He is, by all accounts, a wonderful human being and a respected locker room presence.<\/p>\n He is also the exact player Nico Harrison would have signed instead of trading for Marcus Sasser<\/a>. I can see the press conference. I can hear the phrase \u201cchampionship run.\u201d I can feel my soul leaving my body.<\/p>\n Keon Ellis \u2192 Brooklyn Nets (2 years, $18 million)<\/p>\n Ellis is 26 and a perfectly useful 3-and-D wing who\u2019s a little undersized at 6\u20194\u201d and not much of a playmaker. He\u2019s not a bad player. He may even be a helpful one in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the point. A disciplined front office can pass on a decent player because he doesn\u2019t quite fit the build. The old Mavericks too often treated available and familiar as if they were synonyms for sensible. Sometimes the sign of a grown-up front office is not that it avoids obvious disasters. Sometimes it just declines the wrong perfectly fine player at the wrong perfectly fine price.<\/p>\n Good luck in Brooklyn, Keon.<\/p>\n Javonte Green \u2192 Detroit Pistons (1 year, $3.95 million)<\/p>\n Green re-signed with Detroit at 32, and this is the one that you can imagine easily in a post-Luka delusional Nico timeline. If he were still here, Harrison could easily be envisioned welcoming Javonte Green as the quintessential \u201cwin now charade\u201d signing.<\/p>\n A 30-something journeyman role player who fills a roster spot and lets a GM gesture toward activity without actually building anything. In the Harrison timeline, Green is your sixth man and you\u2019re being told to feel good about it.<\/p>\n Tobias Harris \u2192 San Antonio Spurs (2 years, $31 million)<\/p>\n Harris signed with a division rival for $31 million fully guaranteed, pushing his career earnings past $330 million. He\u2019s turning 34 this month. He\u2019s a fine player who will give San Antonio respectable minutes next to Wembanyama.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also the kind of name and price tag that would have had Harrison feeling great about himself at the introductory press conference and Mavericks fans doing cap sheet math by December.<\/p>\n The Spurs can have him. Bon app\u00e9tit.<\/p>\n