The Kyrie trade was not a win now move

TL;DR Trade was the right long term move despite making team worse this year.

The way I see it is the Mavs had 3-4 main weaknesses that could be called different things but I would summarize them as needing a 2nd star to take carrying pressure and fatigue off of Luka, rebounding issue continued from last season, and interior defense. (I know the perimeter defense isn’t good either but when DFS was here I don’t think it was a main weakness.) A win now move would have been to use the tradable FRP to address defense/rebounding. Mavs losses this season can be blamed more on that than lack of offense. This would have improved the team, but not sure it would be enough to get to Finals due to the amount of carrying Luka would have to do. Instead, Mavs FO chose to obtain the 2nd star, which in doing so did make the team worse this year. The added offense did not make up for the defense that we gave up making an existing weakness even worse. This was still the correct move thinking long term. Star players do not choose to come to Dallas in free agency. Regardless of who is to blame for this, it is a reality. So apart from the draft, trading for a star and hoping they re-sign is the way. It is really going to come down to what the FO does in the off-season starting with re-signing Kyrie. Luka, Kyrie, & Hardy as playmakers should be all the offense we need as long as we have competent 3PT shooters. Need to figure out the interior issues. I know there are limited options, but I have hope that some outside-the-box move by Nico can happen. For example, I’d consider trading back into the draft last year to pick Hardy at 37 a nice creative move that few people could have predicted. Despite the pain of this season, we are on the right track for being year 2 of Nico as GM. The unexpected success last season raised expectations higher than the ceiling as they are currently constructed. Coaching has been troublesome, however firing a coach in his 2nd year after over-performing his 1st year is a worse sign of an unstable franchise than having an underperforming season whilst trying to re-configure the roster. In conclusion, this year sucks but there is hope for the future.