Dallas Mavericks: How they can acquire Andre Drummond this season

Impact on the Mavericks

Since both teams are currently over the cap, but below the luxury tax line, the trade can be completed as long as neither team absorbs more than 175 percent (plus $100,000) of their outgoing salary. The Mavs would be sending a little over $26 million to the Pistons and would be taking on Drummond’s $27 million.

This trade would not do much damage to the Mavs’ salary tables, as Jackson and Powell save the Mavs enough money to be active in free agency next summer.

Cap room will be nearly impossible to create, but the Mavericks could still have enough room under the luxury tax line to have their full mid-level exception available to them, even if both Tim Hardaway Jr. and Drummond opt out of the last year of their deals and create huge cap holds. That exception’s value could be reduced slightly depending on where the Mavericks finish in the draft order this year, but only minimally.

The Mavs’ outside shooting would take a hit with Jackson no longer on the team, but there are a couple of ways that they could make up for it. For starters, Ryan Broekhoff could play a few minutes a night. The Australian forward has proven to be a fantastic shooter when given the opportunity. He doesn’t possess the in-between floater game that Jackson has, but his outside stroke is something that Dallas already has in their stable.

Furthermore, the Mavs would be creating two open roster spots with this trade. One or both of them could be used in the buyout market. J.J. Redick, Danilo Gallinari, Allen Crabbe, Marvin Williams, and Wayne Ellington are all wings who could help replace some of the shooting left behind by Jackson.

The Mavericks are a contending team, and would only become more so with Drummond. Veterans looking to latch on to a playoff team would find Dallas attractive.

The Dallas Mavericks are one of the West’s deepest and most feared teams. Add one of the league’s most dominant centers, and the Mavs might just have themselves a deep playoff run. Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis are the core of the team, but a supporting cast of Drummond, Hardaway, Dorian Finney-Smith and others will be frightening to anybody in basketball.