Last week, Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison publicly expressed his desire to rerun the team’s roster that reached the 2024 NBA Finals. The Mavericks, he said, needed every player to come back “10 to 15 percent better” than last season.
“The core is intact,” Harrison said on Friday. “If you look at the top seven or eight players that really played, I don’t see anything happening with that.”
Harrison was telling the truth, mostly. Dallas feels comfortable bringing a rotation into next season similar to the one that just reached the third finals in franchise history, one fully assembled barely more than four months ago. Against the Boston Celtics, the Mavericks ultimately were not competitive. “I don’t throw everything we did in the postseason out the window (because of that series),” Harrison said. But there is the undeniable fact that Dallas couldn’t reach Boston’s level. The Mavericks may have reached the black-tie event, but sometimes even tuxedos need alterations.
The only player within the postseason rotation’s top eight not currently under contract next season is Derrick Jones Jr., and the Mavericks took their first step toward his return on Friday. Tim Hardaway Jr., who curiously played the team’s ninth-most minutes during the finals run, was traded to the Detroit Pistons along with three second-round picks — a 2025 second-rounder via the Toronto Raptors and two 2028 selections — for 24-year-old guard Quentin Grimes. While Hardaway had some soaring highs for Dallas across his five and a half seasons, he had been shopped in consecutive summers and fell out of the team’s postseason rotation amid an icky late-season slump. More importantly, his contract inhibited the team’s offseason plans. By exchanging those players, the Mavericks have also swapped the more limited midlevel exception it had available for the nontaxpayers one worth a projected $12.9 million, which provides them $7.7 million more to offer to free agents.
In this case, the move can be read rather simply: Dallas can now be competitive in its desire to retain Jones.
“He’s priority one: 1A and 1B. I think he fits in with our team,” Harrison said. “He loves it here, and we have to figure out obviously the dynamics to get him to stay. But that’s a priority, and we’ll do what we have to do to get it done.”
Last August, Jones signed a veteran’s minimum deal with the Mavericks. Interestingly, the decision came down to either Dallas or Boston, but Jones’ bet on himself paid off handsomely on the court and soon should do the same off it. Dallas may not use its entire $12.9 million exception on him, but Jones has certainly earned some meaningful chunk of it. After four straight seasons where his total minutes had fallen and his role had been reduced, Jones played 400 minutes more than any prior year in his regular season career while starting 88 of the team’s 98 total games.
Jones faltered slightly on the final stage. He received just 33 minutes across Games 3 and 4 of the finals, his lowest total across any two-game span in the 2024 playoffs. It was a tactical admission from head coach Jason Kidd that Jones’ offensive limitations had finally been exposed by the Boston defense. But Dallas wouldn’t have been there without him, either. It was his athleticism that, in part, helped propel the Luka Dončić-led offense to its reimagined tempo that finished seventh-fastest in the regular season. And it was Jones’ ability to guard opposing perimeter stars, which he did at a higher rate than any other player in the league, that sheltered Dončić and Kyrie Irving from constant one-on-one scrutiny.
Both Jones and his agent have previously indicated his desire to re-sign in Dallas, and two league sources granted anonymity to speak freely believe that’s the likeliest outcome. If Dallas does re-sign him, it won’t be a decision made without other considerations. For months, Dallas has been monitoring the New Orleans Pelicans’ Naji Marshall and the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Isaac Okoro, according to a league source, as possible contingency plans if Jones isn’t re-signed. The team’s curiosity in the Portland Trail Blazers’ Jerami Grant has also been legitimate, per another league source, although there’s no indication Portland is actively seeking to trade him or is interested in what Dallas could offer.
These are the inner workings of a front office that witnessed its superb season, while undeniably successful, end short of its goal. The Mavericks made their postseason opponents look worse than their sum until they finally ran into a team that did that to them. Since Harrison’s arrival, Dallas’ team-building approach has never been complacent, but it hasn’t been reactionary, either — sometimes even to a fault. (Dallas failing to acquire another ballhandler after Jalen Brunson’s departure in the 2022 offseason leaps to mind.) Assessing Jones’ shortcomings cannot happen without also acknowledging his contributions to help put Dallas on the stage where those shortcomings finally were shown.
And thus, if Dallas does re-sign Jones to start again next season, it might be the path of alteration that bolsters the internal development Dallas expects from its core. Grimes, the player acquired in the Hardaway deal, could be exactly one such stitching to the team’s existing fabric.
Entering his fourth season, Grimes hasn’t had a stable situation over the past two years partially due to his own inconsistency and injuries. But he’s a prolific 3-point shooter who has converted them at a 37.1 percent rate in his career. Grimes has on-ball and defensive abilities that could be amplified in a setting like Dallas. Perhaps they won’t be magnified; perhaps his expiring contract simply runs out without Dallas seeing enough to engage with him in restricted free agency next season. Grimes is still someone who offers potential improvement to this roster as a sweetener to a deal Dallas needed to make.
The Mavericks could still shop for something pricier and nicer. Harrison’s stated comfort in bringing back this core doesn’t prevent him from finding another deal on the offseason rack that he feels is too good to pass up. But having comfort in what brought the team to this stage prevents desperation clouding any decision-making. Re-signing Jones would represent that to Dallas, and now the team iss one step closer to it.
(Photo of Nico Harrison: Tim Heitman / Getty Images)
