Late last week, multiple league sources said that the Mavericks and the Detroit Pistons renewed conversations about a Bojan Bogdanović trade. Dallas had previously considered trading for Bogdanović at last season’s deadline, but Detroit’s asking price of a first-round pick was considered too high for the Dallas front office.

League sources say that the talks were sturdy enough to discuss a potential trade framework — Bogdanović and Killian Hayes coming to Dallas, Tim Hardaway Jr. and JaVale McGee going out — but it’s unclear what else would have been required from each party to expand it to a four-team deal and what ultimately caused those talks, however serious, to stall. (Dallas is incredibly cautious to trade its 2027 first-round pick, one team source says, which the team could not put typical protections due to the first-rounders which it owes.) By Tuesday afternoon, Dallas’ front office was content with completing the Williams sign-and-trade as it existed without additions.