ESPN buries Mavericks with baffling offseason grade that no one expected

With offseason news slowing down as the NBA nears its dog days of the summer, by all accounts, the Dallas Mavericks have made all of the home-run moves they have had to make this summer. For starters, the Mavericks made a franchise-altering selection after winning the draft rights to the No. 1 overall pick and selecting Cooper Flagg, while also signing D'Angelo Russell in the opening hours of free agency.

Not only have these two moves geared up the Mavericks for a potential playoff run as soon as this season, barring when Kyrie Irving returns to the floor from his ACL tear, but with Flagg now on the roster, the Mavericks have a future to focus on. While all of the Mavericks news has been focused on Flagg and the fallout of trading Luka Doncic, ESPN quietly gave the Mavs an extremely disrespectful offseason grade.

ESPN basketball writer Kevin Pelton is well respected in the media world; however, his grade of the Mavericks' offseason may be way too low for fans' liking, considering what moves Dallas has made.

ESPN slights Mavs with a disrespectful rating in their offseason grade

It's no secret that the Western Conference got better this season, and Pelton makes sure fans understand this with his grading of the LA Clippers, Denver Nuggets, and the Houston Rockets, who have all been thrown into contender categories. While the Mavericks can't even be mentioned in the same breath as these three teams, and that's not even mentioning the Oklahoma City Thunder, Dallas had a really solid offseason with the resources they had available.

Although the Mavericks may be looking at this season as a gap year with Irving's timeline to return from his ACL tear, Pelton uses this against the Mavericks, as he gives them a B- on their offseason grade.

While there is some truth to the grade Dallas was given, the Mavericks only had the taxpayer's mid-level exception at their disposal, which they would go on to use to sign arguably one of the best available free agents in Russell. Pelton would also go on to say that drafting Flagg did not affect the team's grade, despite drafting one of the highest-regarded rookies in recent memory.

To some fans, a B- may sound just right if you're excluding drafting Flagg; however, it's hard not to feel like Flagg was arguably the biggest acquisition of the summer, and that's ahead of the Kevin Durant transaction in many fans' eyes.

The Mavericks also had P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford, who were eligible for contract extensions this summer, and while Washington isn't eligible to be extended until August, one of the first moves Nico Harrison made this summer was extending Gafford on a tradable contract. There's no doubt that trading either of Washington or Gafford would be a tough pill to swallow, but it may be a move down the line that the Mavericks need to make if they begin to shift their focus to building around Flagg.

In addition to the Gafford extension, Harrison and Jason Kidd also added a completely new coaching staff off the bench. From hiring Frank Vogel and Phil Handy, the Mavericks aren't getting enough credit for how they revamped their coaching staff.

By no means do the Mavericks deserve an A+ or even an A grade for their offseason, as they failed to acquire another lead ball handler, but the full expectation for the Mavericks is that Flagg will take plenty of the reps needed to run the offense. Having a rookie run your offense may never sound like a good idea for a team with playoff aspirations, but this may be the only time Flagg has the opportunity to work on his on-ball game.

While a B- may sound like an extremely low grade for the Mavericks' offseason, Dallas now has the perfect opportunity to prove the league wrong and build a winning culture around Flagg before he even scratches his prime.