The Dallas Mavericks need to find someone to run the offense while Kyrie Irving is sidelined next season, and the perfect answer may be a trade for DeMar DeRozan.
The Mavericks and Kings found themselves in a very similar situation last season. Sacramento finished the season 40-42 and secured the ninth seed in the Western Conference; Dallas was 39-43 and finished 10th. The two teams then met in the Play-In Tournament, with the Mavericks easily dispatching the Kings to advance (and ultimately lose to the Memphis Grizzlies).
Yet the two teams are in very different places when it comes to the future. The Kings are wandering in the wilderness, with a new coach, a new decision-maker and plenty of organizational drama. They just traded their best player for essentially peanuts, have a trio of "stars" who don't fit together, and the path forward is a completely mystery.
The Mavericks, on the other hand, have a goal: championship. This franchise believes that it has the defensive pieces to win a title -- that's why Nico Harrison traded Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis and Max Christie -- and that belief is likely only spurred on by the coming addition of No. 1 overall pick, Cooper Flagg.
Yet their No. 1 option on offense, Kyrie Irving, is recovering from a torn ACL he suffered in March and will miss most of the upcoming season. With aging stars in Davis and Irving, the Mavericks likely don't want to entirely punt on next season. Their path forward, therefore, is finding a way to be good enough during the regular season to be in position for a run in the playoffs once Irving returns.
Pushing what chips they have remaining into the middle to add a star-level offensive engine doesn't make much sense given (1) the emphasis the team wants to have on defense, and (2) that Irving will return and take that role over. A two-way star who is effective on and off the ball as well as on defense would be ideal, but then again, there are maybe a half dozen such players in the entire league.
What the Mavericks would like to find is a player who can raise the team's offensive floor as a creator next season, but who is neither so expensive to acquire nor has long-term money that would hamstring their ability to contend around Irving and Davis and Flagg.
The answer may just be waiting for them on the aforementioned Sacramento Kings: DeMar DeRozan.
DeMar DeRozan is the perfect Kyrie replacement
The Kings don't need both DeRozan and Zach LaVine taking up space on the wing; neither is an ideal on-ball playmaker and therefore need to play with a table-setter, yet at the same time neither are good enough defensively to justify such a three-person combination. While the rumors are not prevalent, it would be shocking if the Kings were not checking out DeRozan's value around the league.
DeRozan is on an extremely team-friendly contract, making only $24.7 million next season before a partially-guaranteed 2026-27 number of $10 million. That is a number that is easy enough for the Mavericks to match in a trade, and could be easily moved on from after this year. In essence, DeRozan is the ideal fill-in for Irving.
The six-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA scoring threat is one of the last great "walking buckets" who can just generate a shot against any defensive coverage. He lacks the elite passing vision or three-point range to elevate a team to tip-top levels, and there are diminishing returns when you move him off the ball, but surround him with defenders like Cooper Flagg, Anthony Davis and Dereck Lively II and you get an offense that is good enough to win a lot of games while Irving recovers.
The money works out rather easily as well. Klay Thompson and Naji Marshall together make nearly the same exact amount as DeRozan, and the Kings could use both players and may not ask for much draft capital in return, if any. In fact, given Kings owner Vivek Ranadive's known obsession with the Splash Brothers, he may attach a second coming back to Dallas in such a deal.
DeRozan is hardly a perfect player, but he could be exactly what the Mavericks need this season. Harrison should be chatting with Sacramento to see just what it would take to land the prolific scorer who is 28th all-time in points and could add to his total in a Mavericks uniform.
