Would you have traded Marcin Gortat for Brandon Bass?

The Mavs and Magic can't do a double sign-and-trade because Marcin Gortat and Brandon Bass are both base-year compensation players. If you're curious about what the heck that means, click here for your answer. So that means the Mavs aren't able to come up with a way to get Gortat while saving their midlevel exception for somebody else. And Bass gets away without any return, although there was talk about squeezing him into the four-team Shawn Marion/Jerry Stackhouse/whole bunch of other dudes deal. Even though it isn't officially a trade, the Mavs and Magic will basically end up swapping Bass for Gortat. That seems like a deal that makes sense for both teams. Bass would never have been a starter in Dallas with Dirk here. Gortat would never have been a starter in Orlando with Dwight Howard there. From the Mavs' perspective, Bass had probably reached his peak here. He provided scoring punch off the pine, but he wasn't going to be more than a 20-25-minute man. Gortat can play a much bigger role than that, filling a major need for the Mavs as a traditional big man who protects the rim and eats glass but has the speed to play in an up-tempo system. It'd have been nice to keep Bass or at least get something for him, but the Mavs believe they're a better team with Gortat than Bass.