Mavericks' inexcusable contract blunder is brutally biting them hard now

As the Dallas Mavericks trek further into the offseason, the consensus among many fans and analysts is that next season's Mavericks will be as successful as their ability to fill Kyrie Irving's shot creation and scoring punch is, as Irving will be out of the lineup for at least half of the season. Dallas addressed this by signing D'Angelo Russell over the summer, but Russell is coming off a rough season with the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets, and he has a lot to prove this season if he wants to become the type of stopgap point guard the Mavericks need to fill even 75 percent of what Irving brings to the table.

With all that being said, Dallas can use all the help they can get in terms of guards at the moment, and it would've been great if they could've kept Quentin Grimes instead of someone like Jaden Hardy, as he went on to thrive for the Philadelphia 76ers in an increased role as a three-level creator.

Grimes likely won't assume as heavy of a workload next season for Philadelphia, but he proved even in Dallas that he could create offense for himself and others on a pretty efficient basis, and his ball-handling repertoire has developed immensely since coming into the league

Quentin Grimes would've been better for next year's team than Hardy

Jaden Hardy has not proven to be near as close to the same level of guard on either side of the ball as Grimes has throughout his career, and the Mavericks could've avoided having to trade Grimes because of not being able to pay him enough this summer if they would've reached a contract extension with him last fall before the start of the regular season, but the Mavericks opted to give Hardy a three-year $18 million extension instead.

Hardy still has some potential in the league, but he hasn't improved much through three seasons in the league, and Grimes is also young and has improved steadily throughout his career. While Grimes would've cost more last fall, as Dallas was unwilling to budge on a number around $8-9 million annually on a prospective extension for the 25-year-old, they could've made an extension work if they prioritized signing Grimes over Hardy instead.

Who knows how Grimes would've stepped up in the absence of Irving, but Dallas assuredly could've made this work financially had they correctly decided on extending Grimes instead of Hardy, as Grimes proved to be an elite enough creator last season to the point where Dallas may have not even wanted to sign someone like D'Angelo Russell in the first place.

The only sort of silver lining to extract from the Grimes-Caleb Martin trade thus far has been that Grimes may have made Dallas' record too good last season to ultimately land Cooper Flagg. However, the Mavericks' value proposition of Grimes was cooked from the start, as they were reluctant to pay Grimes on an extension that would've been a bargain deal based on how much he elevated his value at the end of last season, and they gave up a second round pick to get off his contract and take a worse player back.