Mavericks' ill-fated Klay Thompson buyout has a hidden blessing

Many Dallas Mavericks fans were disappointed when the organization recently bought out Klay Thompson, as a player of Thompson's pedigree should theoretically be able to get some sort of trade value back in return, but the Mavericks were at least smart enough not toto deal Thompson for Nikola Jovic from the Miami Heat.

Jovic is an intriguing bigger-bodied wing, and he's only 23 years old, but he's simply not the archetype of player Dallas could afford to add to their current roster right now. Jovic was the most logical player Dallas would've gotten back had they traded Thompson to Miami instead of letting him go there on his own accord, as Jovic and Thompson make very similar money.

Not trading Thompson is a loss, but Dallas was smart to avoid Jovic

It would've been interesting to add another young flyer on Dallas' roster in the form of Jovic, but the Mavericks are already extremely crowded on the wing, and it would've been burdensome for Dallas' coaching staff to try and figure out their rotation on the wing at that point.

The Mavericks already have eight players that could be considered wings, and that's not even counting their two-way contract players. Had they added Jovic, that total would stand at nine, which would've meant 60 percent of Dallas' standard contracts were for wings or wing-adjacent players.

If this were last offseason, perhaps adding Jovic would be more intriguing, as he was coming off the best season of his career in 2024-25, averaging 10.7 points and 3.9 rebounds per game with shooting splits of 45.6/37.1/82.8.

Jovic's durability and shooting concerns were too clear to ignore

However, Jovic had by far the worst shooting season of his career last season for the Heat, making skeptics wonder if Miami overshot his ceiling/potential when they gave him a four-year $62.4 million contract extension last year. Jovic averaged just 7.3 points per game last season, with shooting splits of 36.6/26.9/68.3.

He also only appeared in 47 games, which was actually the highest number of games played in any of his first four NBA seasons. Jovic has been notoriously injury-prone throughout his career, and these injuries haven't just been in one place on the body, which would be another concern Dallas would have to face had they added him to the roster instead of Thompson.

Dallas already has enough concerns in the injury department regarding players like Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford, so adding another player of this ilk like Jovic would've been a hard sell. Of course, Jovic is still young enough to bounce back from a down season last year, and hopefully he can prove to be more durable as his career progresses, but this is simply a gamble the Mavericks weren't willing to take, and rightfully so.

Ultimately, it's still a shame the Mavericks got nothing at all for Thompson, as there were other young flyers across the league they could've targeted in a Thompson deal, but it seems teams weren't willing to give up those types of players in a Thompson trade. Dallas likely lost their leverage in terms of negotiating on a Thompson trade at this juncture, with teams knowing Dallas still had to cut down to 15 standard contracts before the start of the regular season.

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