Just three years ago, the Dallas Mavericks made a blockbuster trade that landed them Kristaps Porzingis from the New York Knicks in what was seen as a positive deal for a franchise looking to build itself around its budding young star. boom at Luka Doncic. The vision was clear: to pair a seven-foot All-Star who earned the nickname “unicorn” for his rare combination of skills, with a young prodigy in Doncic and continue to build around that core that had championship potential.

However, since that trade in January 2019, Porzingis has played in 134 of a possible 202 regular season games for the Mavericks, or 66%. When the center of seven feet has been healthy, he was good for 20 points a night, about seven to eight rebounds, and this season he’s returned to his fearsome rim-protecting ways as an anchor for the sixth-ranked Dallas defense.

But Porzingis’ ability to stay healthy was a constant problem. Although Dallas traded him to the Washington Wizards in a shocking move before the league’s trade deadline on Thursday, he has missed the last five games with a right knee bruise. He’s missed 22 out of a possible 55 games this season so far, with various injuries and a bout with COVID-19 halting his production. The instant reaction suggested it was a bad trade from the Dallas side, with our own Brad Botkin giving Dallas a C grade for the deal. While on paper the deal to bring in Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans seems like a headache as the two have struggled mightily this season, it’s a necessary risk the Mavericks had to take as they continue to trying to build around Doncic.

With Porzingis’ injury history as long as a CVS receipt, and the constant will, won’t he play tonight that surrounded the big man every time he showed up on the injury report, he’s logical that Dallas would want to move on from him. Sometimes the best ability is availability, and for a team trying to put the best people around their now three-time All-Star, having the team’s second-best player consistently in and out of the roster isn’t ideal. Especially when he’s making over $31 million this season and still owes $33.8 million next year with a $36 million player option for the 2023-24 season.

Add to that the fact that the Mavericks haven’t been significantly better with Porzingis and Doncic on the field as opposed to just Doncic, and you start to see that partnership hasn’t been nearly as successful. This season alone, the Mavericks have gone 14-8 in games he’s missed, including a five-game winning streak in January that featured wins over the Golden State Warriors, Denver Nuggets and Chicago Bulls.

Speaking to the media about the trade, Mavs general manager Nico Harrison said the deal was made with the goal of improving the team.

“It was less about his availability than about how to improve the team?” said Harrison. “Because listen, I think if you look at KP, it was trinket injuries. If it was the playoffs, he could have played. It was like stuff that during the season, you could sit out, but in the playoffs you would play, so I don’t think they were a problem.”

Team owner Mark Cuban also offered a similar take on the trade.

“Sometimes it’s the system that matters, and for the system to work, you have to have people who fill different roles within a system,” Cuban said via the Dallas Morning News. “KP was great in some roles, wasn’t he? And he did a lot of amazing things with us, but there were some things we didn’t have with Timmy, so we were able to do two-for-one to this regard. “

Tim Hardaway Jr.’s injury has certainly upended Dallas’ plans this season, and it’s long been reported that the Mavericks are looking to add more shooters to make up for the loss. As for the system, while Porzingis seems like an ideal teammate for Doncic, this aspect of their partnership has never lived up to expectations. Doncic found more success with Dwight Powell as a pick-and-roll partner, as the springy forward was a solid lob threat for Doncic.

Over the past season, Porzingis has also talked about wanting to post more, and while new head coach Jason Kidd has allowed him to do so this season, it hasn’t yielded great results. The seven-footer ranks in the 36th percentile of post-up opportunities this year, averaging just 0.887 points per possession. His 3-point shooting has also dropped sharply, going just 28.3% from deep on more than five attempts per game. Despite that, though, Porzingis still has a unique offensive skill set for someone his size, so you’d think trading him would actually net the Mavericks a positive return.

Instead, Dallas traded Porzingis for two struggling assets in Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans, who don’t immediately make the Mavericks any better right now. Dinwiddie is having an incredibly bad year for someone who signed a three-year, $54 million contract last summer. He’s only averaged 12.6 points with Washington and looked like a shell of himself who averaged 20.6 points for the Brooklyn Nets two years ago before an ACL tear that left him. sidelined in all but three games last season. Bertans has been even worse, recording more DNP-CDs this season than points after signing a hefty five-year, $80 million deal with the Wizards in 2020.

But if Bertans can rehabilitate his shooting and get back to the 42% 3-point sniper he was two years ago, then this contract suddenly doesn’t look so bad. It also gives the Mavericks another shooter for Doncic to work with in Hardaway’s absence. As for Dinwiddie, if he returns to that sixth man role off the bench, he can totally control the second unit and dominate the ball. There was also this thought of Dinwiddie being insurance in case the Mavericks are put on a price trying to re-sign Jalen Brunson this summer. But for now, if Dinwiddie can turn things around, he’s providing an upgrade to Trey Burke and Frank Ntilikina who are currently filling that backup guard role.

Cuban echoed that sentiment when explaining Bertans and Dinwiddie’s trade.

“We have Luka, [Jalen Brunson] and Trey [Burke, who] are really the only guys who can create dribble, and maybe Frank [Ntilikina] to some extent,” Cuban said. “But now Spencer is doing it, so the whole idea of ​​giving Luka a chance to rest once in a while – he’s not going to want to rest, but give him that opportunity to rest. With Timmy outside, Bertans [can] space out the pitch, it gives us more space for Luka, Trey and JB, Spencer, whoever else is there.”

The financial component is where it has perhaps the most positive outcome for Dallas. Porzingis owes about $69.8 million over the next two years. The sum of Bertans and Dinwiddie’s contracts is around $69 million, so essentially the Mavericks split Porzingis’ deal into two smaller contracts with the players they traded for. So if Dinwiddie and Bertans improve, their contract negotiations could potentially be easier down the line.

It is also about building around Doncic, who just turned 23 at the end of February. He hasn’t even entered his prime yet, which is a scary thought considering he just dropped a career-high 51 points in a win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday night. Although the Mavericks’ timeline has been sped up due to Doncic’s success, it’s still early to consider this team a title threat, even when Porzingis was in the lineup. If there was a moment to pull the plug and pivot to a different path, this would be it. Although Porzingis at his best seemed like an ideal running mate next to Doncic, it just didn’t work out, and Dallas clearly didn’t see the point in giving him more playing time.

The is the risk of Porzingis blowing up in Washington, in fact, Cuban said “I actually think he’s going to be better with the Wizards than he was with us,” after the trade was made. But it was clear that the partnership between Doncic and Porzingis was not as successful as the Mavericks had hoped. Although the performance was not what one would expect for a max-contract player who averaged just under 20 points per game, the league clearly viewed Porzingis as a negative. Dallas could have waited until the summer to see what better deal might be there, but to do so now signals the Mavericks just wanted to end that era. It’s a risky move to make after going all-in on Porzingis three years ago, but terminating his contract now could make it easier to build around Doncic down the line.