Should the Dallas Mavericks trade for Chris Paul?
Why the Thunder say yes:
The Chris Paul contract is going to be a millstone hanging around the neck of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Despite being in the playoff picture, they are not going to contend this year. Therefore in order to go into a rebuild mode, they need to remove the $124 million off their books.
This will involve eating some bad contracts and Courtney Lee is at $12.7 million this season on an expiring deal; playing just seven games so far. They will not want to get anything for him, so they will happily let him walk at the end of the season.
more mavericks. How Porzingis can take advantage of Luka's absence. light
Tim Hardaway Jr. is a good floor spacer. He has only this year and next year on his contract and as it is half what is being paid to Paul, this opens up a lot of options for the Thunder to sign players this summer.
While the free-agent talent pool is pretty shallow this summer, they could potentially eat some bad contract next year to get even more draft picks, or even a young future player where they could not have with the Paul contract.
Trading Paul would also hand the keys to the franchise to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who would run the point, accelerating his learning. Having Hardaway start at the shooting guard would give the Thunder have three similarly sized players who can switch on the wing.
Next. Each team's best era. dark
Paul is not part of the future of the Thunder, he could truly benefit the Dallas Mavericks. He could even push them to a contender level.