Dallas Used the Sixth Pick to Control the Draft Board
Dallas did not simply wait for Dirk Nowitzki to fall to No. 9. The Mavericks selected Robert Traylor at No. 6 because Milwaukee wanted the powerful Michigan center and was willing to send the ninth pick plus Pat Garrity to secure him. That arrangement let Dallas obtain its preferred prospect while extracting another first-round asset. The maneuver required conviction that Nowitzki would remain available and that his unusual combination of size, touch and perimeter skill would translate from Germany. It was a scouting win, but it was also an execution win: Dallas converted knowledge of another team’s preference into additional value without losing the player it wanted.
Nowitzki Rewrote the Competitive History of the Mavericks
Nowitzki became the organizing force of the franchise for 21 seasons. He won the 2007 MVP award, carried Dallas to the 2006 Finals, returned with a more complete team to win the 2011 championship and earned Finals MVP during one of the defining postseason runs of the era. His scoring gravity allowed the Mavericks to build many different styles around him, from the Nash-Finley offenses to the defense-and-depth champion. The trade therefore cannot be judged as a favorable prospect swap alone. It produced the player who turned Dallas from a chronically unstable club into a perennial playoff organization with a durable basketball identity.
Pat Garrity Added a Second Branch to the Draft-Night Return
Garrity never played a regular-season game for Dallas, but his inclusion was not decorative. The Mavericks used his rights in the separate draft-night transaction that brought Steve Nash back from Phoenix. Nash developed into an All-Star in Dallas and helped create the high-powered teams that established Nowitzki as a contender before returning to the Suns. The later Nash outcome does not belong entirely to the Traylor trade because Dallas also surrendered other pieces, yet Garrity supplied a necessary component. That secondary branch illustrates why the transaction was so damaging for Milwaukee: Dallas received both the generational centerpiece and an asset that helped acquire another foundational guard.
Milwaukee Chose Immediate Physical Certainty Over Rare Upside
Traylor was a celebrated college player with strength, rebounding ability and a body that appeared ready for NBA contact. Milwaukee’s preference was understandable within a late-1990s environment that still prized interior bulk and treated international prospects as unusually uncertain. The error was not merely that Traylor failed to become a star. The Bucks paid an extra first-round asset to move toward the safer archetype while passing on a skill package the league was about to value more every year. Traylor became a reserve whose conditioning and mobility limited his ceiling. Milwaukee’s process favored familiarity over the possibility of a player who could change offensive geometry.
The Grade Reflects a Franchise Outcome, Not Hindsight Mockery
An F for Milwaukee can sound cruel because draft evaluation is probabilistic and few observers predicted the full scale of Nowitzki’s career. The grade is nevertheless appropriate for realized trade value. Milwaukee surrendered the rights to a future MVP and champion, added Garrity to complete the exchange and received only four seasons of reserve production from Traylor. Dallas deserves an A+ because no plausible additional return was needed: the player acquired became the greatest Maverick, stayed for his entire career and delivered the franchise’s first title. The gap is not based on one statistical peak but on two decades of organizational consequence.
The Transaction Validated International Scouting Before It Became Fashionable
Dallas trusted Donnie Nelson’s extensive work on Nowitzki at a time when European prospects were often discussed as projects rather than potential franchise leaders. That trust mattered beyond one selection. The Mavericks built a reputation for identifying talent outside conventional American pipelines and for designing development around individual skill rather than forcing players into older positional templates. Nowitzki’s success helped normalize the idea that a seven-footer could function as a primary perimeter scorer and championship offensive hub. The trade’s historical importance therefore extends beyond Dallas and Milwaukee: it became evidence that global scouting and stylistic imagination could create an advantage over teams anchored to familiar prototypes.
Final Verdict
Mavericks Win, with Dallas at A+ and Milwaukee at F. Dallas used Robert Traylor’s draft rights to secure Dirk Nowitzki and Pat Garrity, then turned Garrity into part of the Steve Nash acquisition. Nowitzki became an MVP, a Finals MVP, the centerpiece of the 2011 champion and the defining player in franchise history. Milwaukee’s preference for Traylor was defensible as a draft opinion, but the trade result was catastrophic: the Bucks paid extra to move away from a transformational prospect and received limited reserve value. Few transactions have produced a wider or more durable separation.