The Mavs are supposedly looking for a 2-way sharp-shooting forward, which makes sense for them. Obviously Luka and Kyrie give a team all the shot creation they could ever need, and Luka can make any rim-running big look good; having good forwards is what can make them a real playoff threat. Tim Hardaway Jr. Is the definition of inconsistent, and the Grant Williams signing hasn’t worked out at all. Here, they move get moved so the Mavs can bring in Tobias Harris, who’s the perfect 3rd option for them. They have to give up two firsts (though one is basically just to dump Richaun Holmes’s contract), which may seem steep, but it’s really not considering the market. Anunoby just got traded for two solid starters, so getting their own version of him in Tobi for two role players is going to cost more, especially considering needing to incentivize someone to take in Holmes. Getting the young KJ Martin, who could look great as a lob threat to Luka, is a nice sweetener.

The 76ers take Holmes in this deal (and the first that comes along with him), but that doesn’t mean they’re tanking. More so it means they have a bunch of rangy forwards (Batum, Oubre, Covington, Morris, even Daniel House), but only one guard who can reliably create their own shot. Spencer Dinwiddie could be a perfect 6th man that could play alongside Maxey sometimes, but whose real value will be taking the ball out of Pat Bev’s hands in bench units and letting him go back to playing a more off-ball role. Nurse generally tries to stagger Maxey and Embiid, but now he wouldn’t even have to as much, as Dinwiddie can run a competent bench unit offense as the pseudo first option much more reliably than Tobi, especially when flanked by other score-first wings in Oubre and Morris for example. Royce O’Neale doesn’t directly replace Tobi in the rotation (I think they’d start Morris or Covington at the 4 for more size), but he’s another versatile wing that can do a bit of everything that Nurse will love to use, even if he is a little small. Seth Curry has barely played this year, and might be washed, but also had incredible chemistry with Embiid a few years ago, and is cheap enough to be worth the flier here. Holmes probably is just a negative contract, but as a 4th center, you could definitely do worse than a guy who’s averaging 12-12 per 36; he can at least eat some innings while Embiid is out. Additionally, since O’Neale and Dinwiddie are both expiring, this deal does mostly preserve their “cap space plan” for the summer. If they really have to, they can use the future first they got in this deal to get someone else to take poor Holmes and Seth, but either way they have flexibility. Theoretically this deal might hurt their title odds a bit this year since Tobi is a pretty clean fit and completes the starting 5, but this deal makes them deeper, fixes their greatest need (other than Embiid’s health), and also sets them up better for future seasons.

The Nets are hard to read, seeing as they supposedly are shopping their vets but also supposedly won’t trade them even for multiple firsts. It’s unclear what they actually want. However, this deal should be easy enough. Grant Williams is theoretically a younger Royce O’Neale who isn’t making all that much money and whose value they could rehab before flipping (or add to their collection of youngish wings), and THJ will be an expiring 6th man next year much like Dinwiddie that they could sell for a similar return then if he plays well. Their team will lack playmaking even more than they already do, but they wouldn’t be selling Dinwiddie to begin with if they weren’t okay with basically punting on the season. Getting a first and two seconds to swap two players for two others who honestly aren’t even that much worse is a pretty easy win.