The Dallas Mavericks are back at it!
The Mavs followed up their stunning trade of Luka Doncic on Saturday night with a complimentary move, acquiring veteran forward Caleb Martin from the Philadelphia 76ers. In exchange, Dallas is sending Quentin Grimes and Philly’s own 2025 2nd-round pick back to the Sixers.
ESPN’s Shams Charania had the report on Tuesday.
Mavericks Acquire Caleb Martin For Quentin Grimes
This move is a somewhat interesting one for Dallas. Martin and Grimes are having pretty similar seasons, and Grimes is actually having the better campaign if you really dig into the numbers. He’s also five years younger, which surely stands out.
However, if you look at the contract status for both players, that might be where we get our reasoning. Grimes is scheduled to be a restricted free agent at the end of the season while Martin is in year one of a four-year deal that averages only $8.7 million annually. The organization could have technically reached an extension with the 24-year-old in the offseason but did not. With that in mind, it could indicate they weren’t interested in re-signing him this offseason and thus wanted to move him before perhaps losing him for nothing. Likewise, the recent addition of Max Christie may have made Grimes more indispensable.
Martin also comes to Dallas with some pretty recent playoff success. In 2023 when the Heat made their Cinderella run to the NBA Finals, Caleb Martin played a pretty big role. In three of their four series that year he averaged double-digit point totals including a 19.3 PPG and 6.4 RPG seven-game series against Boston.
One more reason for this deal – and this is purely speculative on my end – could be that the Mavs potentially wouldn’t hate the idea of moving some of the current players on the roster who might not have loved the Luka Doncic trade. I have a feeling the Doncic deal probably rubbed a few players in that organization the wrong way, and maybe a fresh start for some is a good idea. Again, that’s purely speculative, but would it be terribly shocking if there were some very upset players in the Dallas locker room right now?
Just as a reminder, the NBA Trade Deadline is Thursday at 2:00 PM CT. We’ll keep you posted on any more deals that go down.
Ps: The Mavs actually play the 76ers tonight … so all Grimes and Martin had to do this afternoon was walk across the hall.
Pps: Also, from a brief Bulls perspective, I feel like this is further proof that we shouldn’t expect much more than one second-rounder for someone like Lonzo Ball. While he can certainly have a greater impact than Martin at full heath, I’d still put him in a similar “two-way role player” category right now.