Mavericks rumors: How badly Dallas stiffed Quentin Grimes before 76ers trade

The Dallas Mavericks certainly had an eventful season and trade deadline, to put it lightly. Of course, general manager Nico Harrison stunned the NBA world when he decided to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for a package centered around Anthony Davis. However, that wasn’t the only deal that backfired for the Mavericks at the deadline.

Dallas also dealt promising young wing Quentin Grimes to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Caleb Martin, who has much more experience at the position. However, Martin struggled with injury throughout the second half of the season while Grimes thrived.

Many people questioned why Grimes, who showed flashes of excellence on both ends of the floor with Dallas, was on the list of people sent out of Dallas. As it turns out, the Mavericks never even offered him $10 million per year to stick around before he hits restricted free agency this summer, according to Marc Stein and Jake Fischer of The Stein Line.

“Grimes did not come to terms with Dallas on a rookie-scale extension before last October’s deadline, preferring to bet on himself delivering a strong season and then flourishing to an unforeseen extreme after the Mavericks traded him to Philadelphia,” Fischer and Stein wrote. “A deal with an average annual value of $10 million was never made available to Grimes as a Maverick.”

Grimes certainly made the Mavericks regret that decision during his time on a beat-up 76ers team after the deadline. During that time, he averaged 22.7 points per game and had multiple great scoring nights for Philadelphia. He is likely to command much more than that on the open market now, even though the 76ers will be able to match any offer that is made to him.

Of course, the Mavericks made a similar mistake years ago with current New York Knicks superstar Jalen Brunson. Dallas failed to make him an offer for relatively cheap, Brunson raised his value on the floor exponentially, and then he left when the Knicks made him an offer that the Mavericks could not compete with.

Harrison and the rest of the Dallas front office will certainly be kicking themselves for losing Grimes, but credit goes to the former Maverick for raising his value with a stellar last few months.