{"id":118706,"date":"2025-01-17T20:04:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-18T01:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=118706"},"modified":"2025-01-17T20:06:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T01:06:29","slug":"mavericks-trade-news-daniel-gafford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/17\/mavericks-trade-news-daniel-gafford\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavericks Reportedly Making Center Available for Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the trade deadline inching closer and closer each day, speculating on who will be traded is a daily topic of conversation. Where the\u00a0<\/span>Dallas Mavericks<\/span><\/a>\u00a0fit into the trade buzz has only recently come up, given the injuries they’ve succumbed to and how to improve their roster best to get back to the NBA Finals. The most recent report out of Dallas is that any Mavericks trade activity might involve\u00a0<\/span>Daniel Gafford.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Mavericks Reportedly Making Center Available for Trade<\/h2>\n

Mavericks Center Daniel Gafford Reportedly A Trade Asset<\/h3>\n

Dallas is in the middle of a significant losing slump and a slight\u00a0slide down the Western Conference standings, having gone 2-6 since the start of the new year and 3-11 since losing\u00a0<\/span>Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on Christmas Day against the\u00a0<\/span>Minnesota Timberwolves<\/span><\/a>. In that time,\u00a0<\/span>Kyrie Irving<\/span><\/a>\u00a0also missed time, as has Gafford and, most recently,\u00a0<\/span>Dereck Lively II<\/span><\/a>. Irving and Gafford have since returned from their injuries, while\u00a0<\/span>Lively is listed as day-to-day<\/span><\/a>\u00a0after falling to a right ankle sprain two nights ago.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Healthy, the Mavericks are a deep playoff team, as they showed last season. However, health has been their greatest enemy this season, especially Don\u010di\u0107’s injury. The Mavs have remained relatively quiet on the trade front. That changed today as <\/span>Christian Clark of The Athletic<\/span><\/a> reported that Gafford has been included in trade talks. According to Clark, the Mavericks need a\u00a0perimeter defender, and Gafford could be the man to give up in a trade package.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was reported, also by Clark, that\u00a0<\/span>Herb Jones<\/span><\/a>\u00a0was on the Mavericks radar. However, Jones and\u00a0<\/span>Trey Murphy III<\/span><\/a> are two players the New Orleans Pelicans are not willing to part with despite their dismal season. Who the Mavs find to bring in to fill their perimeter needs remains a question mark. Nevertheless, their willingness to move Gafford comes as a surprise. However, it would be unlikely to hurt them significantly down the road.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moving Gafford Makes Sense Because of Lively’s Emergence<\/h3>\n

Dallas acquired Gafford late last season with\u00a0<\/span>P.J. Washington<\/span><\/a>\u2014a move that propelled the Mavs deep playoff run. Both players have contributed significantly to Dallas since then. Gafford for his paint presence and size, and Washington for his shooting and defensive abilities. Unfortunately for Gafford, though, Lively appears to be the future starting center in Dallas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gafford averages 20 minutes a night, whereas Lively plays 24 minutes. Gafford also averages more points and has been more effective offensively than Lively, but not abundantly so. Lively’s youth and potential have been on display since he was drafted. It makes sense to hand the starting center reins over to Lively for good and the foreseeable future. That would make Gafford close to irrelevant on the Mavericks roster, apart from a limited backup role.<\/p>\n

Lively is a force of energy for the Mavericks and works tirelessly while on the floor. His performance in last season’s playoff run was likely all Dallas needed to realize that he’s their future center. Moving Gafford would solidify Lively’s place in the starting lineup and allow him the room to grow as the talented center he already is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the trade deadline inching closer and closer each day, speculating on who will be traded is a daily topic of conversation. Where the\u00a0Dallas Mavericks\u00a0fit into the trade buzz has only recently come up, given the injuries they’ve succumbed to and how to improve their roster best to get back to the NBA Finals. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":118710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4721,1608,30,62],"tags":[1453,4840,4112,406,1133,1826,4382],"class_list":["post-118706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trade-rumors","category-basketball","category-mavericks","category-nba","tag-daniel-gafford","tag-dereck-lively-ii","tag-herb-jones","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-luka-doncic","tag-p-j-washington","tag-trey-murphy-iii"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118711,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118706\/revisions\/118711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}