Mavericks' upcoming draft picks will force an unavoidable roster crunch

Having the No. 9, 30, and 48 picks in the upcoming NBA Draft, the Dallas Mavericks will inevitably have to trade or choose not to bring back some of their current members of the roster, as there simply won't be space for everybody if Dallas were to sign even two of their upcoming draft picks to guaranteed contracts.

Dallas has four unrestricted free agents this summer in Brandon Williams, Marvin Bagley III, Dwight Powell, and Khris Middleton, and second-year guard Ryan Nembhard has a $2.1 million team option that Dallas can either exercise or decline. This means Dallas has 10 players on guaranteed contracts for next season, and if they signed every single one of their draft picks or even two of them to a guaranteed deal, this would leave them with just 2-3 open roster spots.

The Mavericks will face a roster crunch after the 2026 NBA Draft

Taking this into account, this means at least one of their aforementioned unrestricted free agents will be gone to join another team or out of the league. There won't be an avenue to bring everyone back, especially since Moussa Cisse's two-way contract expires this offseason as well. Who exactly this will be is unclear at this point, but it would seem like Dwight Powell and one of Khris Middleton or Brandon Williams would be the most likely candidates to leave Dallas. Some tough choices are on the way.

On top of that, Dallas may want to make some trades to accommodate the new structure of their roster, or to bring back a free agent they otherwise wouldn't have the space to sign, such as Middleton or Williams, so it's very likely they'll make some sort of trade before training camp starts.

Dallas brought in two unbiased perspectives with Masai Ujiri and Mike Schmitz, and it wouldn't be surprising to see them highly covet their upcoming draft picks compared to players that are already on the roster, especially since Schmitz is a draft guru and neither him or Ujiri has any pre-existing biases toward any of Dallas' current players.

Dallas projects to have a busy offseason outside of the draft as well

This doesn't guarantee Dallas will do something crazy like trade Kyrie Irving, but veteran players like Klay Thompson, P.J. Washington, Caleb Martin, Daniel Gafford, and even Middleton in a sign-and-trade, are all players that could get swapped for other talent or more picks.

The Mavericks aren't projected to have a ton of cap space outside of their Non-taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (~$15 million), so their primary avenue to improve will inevitably be through the draft and whatever trades they can surmise. Patrick Dumont hired this new front office to make tough decisions, and those are going to happen this offseason, even if it proves to be more marginal compared to some earth-shattering moves.

Dallas is in a new era with Cooper Flagg at the forefront, and the new trend in the modern NBA is to be as talented as quickly as possible to give a young star like Flagg a chance at making the playoffs at the very least, and it was clear that last season's roster simply didn't cut it, even if they were fully healthy. Bringing in new talent in the draft could spur some positional overlap that has to be addressed, so expect the Mavericks to be busy making some changes.

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