Report: Mavericks targeting champion player from Nuggets

The Dallas Mavericks are ready to raid the cupboard of the defending champions.

Veteran NBA writer Marc Stein reported this week on Substack that the Mavs will be targeting Bruce Brown as a “starting point” during free agency. Stein notes that Dallas managed to dump Davis Bertans’s contract in a draft-day trade, thereby opening up the $12.4 million non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception for them to use in free agency.

The 26-year-old Brown, a significant role player on the Denver Nuggets title team this past season, just turned down his $6.8 million player option for 2023-24. Denver is a luxury tax team, which will make it very difficult for them to bring back Brown next season.

As for the Mavs, they badly need wing defenders to complement their star core. Brown isn’t particularly tall (6-foot-4), but he has a 6-foot-9 wingspan with disruptive defensive skills both on and off the ball. On top of Brown, Dallas has recently been linked to another long (and familiar) forward.