Dallas Mavericks: The Mavs don’t have the pieces to get Clint Capela

The Dallas Mavericks quickly became one of the teams rumored to be interested in talking with the Houston Rockets about player availability. Unfortunately, the team’s biggest asset is not what the Rockets want.

Anything can happen in basketball and especially during the summer, but sometimes rumors can get taken wildly out of the realm of possibility. Take for example the rumors coming from all sorts of Dallas Mavericks sources that there is interest from the team in acquiring Houston Rockets center, Clint Capela.

First of all, duh, the Mavs would, of course, like to gain the services of a top 10 center on a bargain deal at 25 years old. Capela was a hot name free agent last summer that just happened to be in a year when the teams that did have money weren’t looking for a center. Hence the great deal that the Rockets signed him to.

Second of all, Capela is going to be a guy on any team’s radar that could use a center. There are a bunch of teams that will have cap space this year and Capela is a very good player with a ton of upside.

Here is the issue with the idea of the Mavs making a trade with the Rockets: the team really has no trade chips. If Houston wants to continue winning, they will want talented players that can help them win now. They also have to be what they view as an upgrade over the player they are trading. This would likely rule out any of the veterans on the team not named Kristaps Porzingis.

If the Rockets for some reason decided they need to rebuild, a really unlikely outcome, then Houston would want lottery picks and/or young players. Well, as much as I like Jalen Brunson and wouldn’t want to trade him, he wouldn’t be nearly enough to get Capela anyways. Had the Mavs kept their pick this year, that would have been a different story.

So yes, the big issue here is that even though the rumors about the Rockets looking to trade Capela may be true, the Mavs do not have assets that the team would be particularly interested in. It is safe to say that Capela and KP would probably fit really well together since they both move well and can play an inside out game, but the point is moot.

Capela may not be the answer, but the Mavs do need to find a player that can rebound the ball at a high level. As it presently constitutes, the Mavs roster is not built to slow down the better rebounding teams in the league. If the team doesn’t get someone in free agency, it could hurt the playoff hopes a bit.

I would love to see the Mavs go get Clint Capela, whom I believe is a top flight center. The pieces to get him just aren’t there and the Rockets aren’t trading him just to trade him, they still have championship aspirations.