NBA Mock Draft: Dallas Mavericks Select Miles Bridges from Michigan State

NBA Mock Draft Pick #11 — Miles Bridges, Forward, Michigan State

SB Nation’s Dallas Mavericks blog Mavs Moneyball explains the pick:

After posting their lowest win total in nearly two decades, the fake Dallas Mavericks are embracing a true rebuild, trading away their leading scorer (among other assets) to jump back into the lottery, where they’ll take Miles Bridges. Internally, there has been a lot of discussion about whether the team should select a big at 5 or a wing, and now they have both. Miles is very athletic, and has some versatility skill-wise, which has been a key focus for the team as they try and build with Dennis Smith Jr. They also add veteran Nic Batum (a player they doggedly went after in the summer of 2016, which feels like seven million years ago now), who at just 29 still brings value and arguably fits coach Rick Carlisle’s offensive scheme better than Harrison Barnes.

These are the terms of the trade in our Blogger Mock Draft between the Charlotte Hornets and Dallas Mavericks:

Dallas receives: 11th pick (2018), Nicolas Batum

Charlotte receives: Harrison Barnes, Dorian Finney-Smith, 33rd pick (2018), Top-10 protected first (2019)*

*if not conveyed, becomes lottery protected in 2020. If that isn’t conveyed, it becomes an unprotected second in 2021.

SB Nation’s Charlotte Hornets blog At the Hive explains the trade:

While the Hornets were tempted to take Miles Bridges with the 11th pick--there was considerable internal debate--we concluded that in order to accelerate our impending rebuild, it might make sense to attach the pick to one of the Hornets’ many awful contracts. When the kind folks at Mavs Moneyball suggested they’d take on the final year of Nicolas Batum’s deal for the 11th pick, we knew we’d found our trade. We like Batum, but he has no future here given Kemba Walker’s upcoming free agency and the Dwight-Howard-in-Charlotte-with-Steve-Clifford experiment failing. After that, it was just a matter of getting as much youth into the deal as possible.

After some negotiation, we managed to convince the Mavericks to give us Harrison Barnes, Dorian Finney-Smith, the 32nd pick, and a first rounder with a bit of protection. Barnes is young, and if he doesn’t work out we can flip him or let him walk instead of paying him big bucks in 2021. If that’s the route we take, this deal saves the Hornets more than $27 million and gives them an intriguing athlete in Finney-Smith and two other youngsters of their choice.

We received a bunch of offers for the 11th pick but most included Kemba Walker going out. This deal allows us to look for a deal for Kemba elsewhere.

Our rebuild just got much, much easier.

1. Suns DEANDRE AYTON
2. Kings LUKA DONCIC
3. Hawks JAREN JACKSON
4. Grizzlies MARVIN BAGLEY III
5. Mavs WENDELL CARTER JR.
6. Magic MO BAMBA
7. Bulls MICHAEL PORTER JR.
8. Cavaliers TRAE YOUNG
9. Knicks MIKAL BRIDGES
10. Sixers ZHAIRE SMITH
11. Mavs MILES BRIDGES
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