Mavs Summer Dreaming: Would Raptors’ Pascal Siakam Trade Fix Issues?

There is no doubt that the Dallas Mavericks have to make some changes this offseason after going from being a Western Conference Finals team to being a team that didn’t even qualify for the NBA Play-In Tournament.

However, do the Mavs need to make as many roster changes as it appears? Sure, Dallas finished with a 38-44 record, but it also played a league-high 55 clutch games, meaning that 67 percent of their games this season essentially came down to the wire. The Mavs posted a 26-29 record in those clutch games. One could argue that the Mavs would’ve safely made the playoffs if they had been capable of getting a few more stops down the stretch of those games.

If the Mavs successfully re-sign Kyrie Irving this summer in order to keep him alongside freshly-minted four-time All-NBA First Teamer Luka Doncic, they already know they’re going to get historical offensive production from the star duo. But how do the Mavs fix a defense that ranked 25th overall in the 2022-23 regular season?

The Mavs reportedly called the Toronto Raptors about the availability of star forward Pascal Siakam a little more than a year ago, so perhaps that interest still lingers now. It certainly should.

Siakam, who was the second-best player on that 2019 Raptors team that won a championship over the Steph Curry and Kevin Durant-led Golden State Warriors, averaged 24.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, 5.8 assists while shooting 48 percent from the field. His offensive production is great, but what makes him special is his ability to get it done on the defensive end as well — something the Mavs greatly need alongside Doncic and Irving going forward.

In the four years since the Raptors won that title, they’ve missed the playoffs twice and have only made it past the first round once. Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry are long gone. Nick Nurse, who was the coach in a Toronto for five seasons, was fired last month. All signs point to a Raptors rebuild coming soon.

If the Raptors do end up shopping Siakam, though, do the Mavs have enough trade ammo to get a deal done? On the surface, the answer to that question appears to be ‘no,’ as many other teams who would surely be interested in Siakam’s services have better draft assets.

That said, Dallas could still have a dark-horse shot at landing Siakam depending on a couple of factors:

1) Which prospects will be available at the 10th pick in next month’s draft, and how much will Raptors GM Masai Ujiri like those prospects? The Mavs retained their top-10 protected pick in Tuesday’s lottery drawing, and the 2023 draft class is one of the deeper ones in recent memory.

2) How much would Toronto value Dallas’ 2027 first-round pick, which is the only other pick the Mavs have available to trade for the foreseeable future? If Ujiri thinks there’s a chance Doncic leaves Dallas in 2026 free agency, that 2027 pick looks all the more enticing.

3) How much can Dallas give up for one player before it becomes too much? We mentioned earlier that perhaps the Mavs’ roster problems are closer to being solved than we realize, but that could change depending on how many players would have to be sent to the Raptors to complete a Siakam deal. A trio of Doncic, Irving and Siakam would put up big numbers for Dallas, but the roster’s depth would be lacking.

We discussed this trade scenario, among many others, on the latest episode of our Mavs Step Back Podcast:

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