Morez Johnson is out here making Nico Harrison's front office look competent, which is the kind of sentence Dallas hasn't earned the right to say out loud since the Luka trade. A 6-foot-9 rookie forward is bullying Summer League bigs in Las Vegas while Cooper Flagg, the actual centerpiece of the rebuild, is already generating headlines of his own before he's played a regular-season minute. Add in Ryan Nembhard-to-De Larrea lob combinations that have Mavericks Twitter reviving the phrase "Lob City" unironically, and Dallas has accidentally produced the most entertaining nothing-basketball of the July calendar. Summer League doesn't crown anyone. It just tells you who the front office was right about, which for one week a year is the only accountability the NBA offers.

And Dallas needs that goodwill on layaway, because the collectibles market has already voted on the actual asset here: a Flagg debut patch autograph selling as a 1-of-1, the physical proof that his rookie card is worth more sealed in a case than most veterans' jerseys are worth on their backs. That's not nostalgia, that's the secondary market pricing a 19-year-old's ceiling in real time, the same instinct that turns Rated Rookie cards into hedge positions the moment a player looks like a foundation piece. The Mavericks traded away a former MVP-caliber talent and got savaged for it in February. By July, the summer roster and the card market are both quietly betting Dallas didn't just survive the trade. It cashed it.