| Grading The Deal: Mavs Get Marion In Four-Way Trade Authored by Christopher Reina - July 9, 2009 - 2:23 pm
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Mark Cuban is like Max Fiscer at Grover Cleveland high school; really making a go of it.
With Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Josh Howard, Jason Terry, Erick Dampier and now Shawn Marion and Marcin Gortat, Dallas has an excellent top-seven and on paper has enough teeth to be a true contender in the Western Conference.
During Marion's best years in Phoenix, he was a garbage scorer playing off of Steve Nash lobs and the attention being served up front to Amare Stoudemire. Marion was clearly a far less effective player in Miami and Toronto when asked to have a bigger offensive role, so it remains unclear if he has simply lost his ability to be productive or simply can't be productive in a system where he is a lead offensive player.
That is the $39 million question Dallas will find out in year one or two, because the Mavericks will have a major overhaul before Marion's contract is up. I don't believe Marion is worth the price tag, but to Dallas he can be the factor that pushes them forward and so with significant money already invested, Marion becomes a type of insurance.
Even at his advanced age, Kidd is the right kind of point guard to pair with Marion and they will benefit each other. Marion was underrated in how much he assisted Nash in running the SSOL offense, due to his versatility and how active he was on both sides of the floor.
This move is a continuation of keeping Kidd and getting Gortat. As soon as they invested in the short-term with Kidd, they had to make another move to go all-in and this is precisely it.
Similar to the aging process already underway in San Antonio, the Mavericks have a quickly closing window and the pressure is on Nowitzki because he has enough weapons surrounding him to return to the Finals.
Grade for Dallas: B
Toronto has now essentially traded Charlie Villanueva for Hedo Turkgolu and Antoine Wright. Considering they were both free agents this summer and Turkoglu was vastly more coveted, I think you can call it a drawn out convoluted win for the club. Villanueva became T.J. Ford, who became Jermaine O'Neal, who became Marion, who became Turkoglu.
Because of this acquisition, the Raptors will now have flexibility to sign another contributing role player.
Grade for Raptors: A
Orlando gets a tidy $8 million trade exception for agreeing to sign-and-trade Turkoglu. Given their cap situation, I would be surprised if the trade exception gets used, but it is a valuable asset to have nevertheless.
But when Orlando acquired Rashard Lewis in a sign-and-trade, they had to send Seattle a draft pick, something Otis Smith didn't do here with Bryan Colangelo.
Grade for Magic: B+
Memphis was essentially paid $2.5 million as purely a facilitator. Chris Wallace has become the Prop Joe of the NBA. He was in on the Houston, Orlando Kyle Lowry/Rafer Alston three-way and completed dumps for Chris Mihm, Shaun Livingston and Steve Francis in just the past few months.
Grade for Grizzlies: A |
