Addressing the Most Glaring Needs
We have reached the stage of the NBA off-season where Summer League is ending, the free agency big board has dried up, and the dog days of the NBA Summer start to creep into the fray. Most teams in the NBA have completed the brunt of their roster retooling & fine-tuning for the upcoming season. The Dallas Mavericks are in contention for one of the best all-around off-seasons in the NBA, having made impactful moves via the NBA Draft and in the free agency and the trade markets. They entered with a plan to right the ship that tanked in 2022-2023, and self-identified glaring areas that needed improvement. Let’s break down how they have and have not addressed the 5 areas that most needed improvement going into the 2023-2024 season.
Defense
Surprise, surprise! We must start with the most obvious. The Mavericks’ biggest Achilles heel this past season, amongst many, was their defense. No way around it. No sugar-coating. No silver linings. They were terrible. The combination of losing Dorian Finney-Smith mid-season in the Kyrie Irving trade, and the broken-down versions of Finney-Smith and Reggie Bullock on the defensive side of the court after the 2022 Western Conference Finals run, were too much for Dallas to replicate what they did in that WCF run. Even if Finney-Smith & Bullock entered the season and maintained their previous years’ defensive intensity and fresh legs, it wouldn’t have been enough to keep the bottom from collapsing on the team that saw their defensive rankings consistently be near the bottom of the league. This was, and still is, a top-to-bottom roster construction issue. The best NBA championship contenders feature multiple rotation-worthy wing defenders along with at least one interior defensive presence that is average or above-average. Dallas did not have anywhere near this template within their roster, and it showed consistently.
Dallas Mavericks General Manager Nico Harrison & co. had a vision to seriously address this issue, and so far, have succeeded. They used their two 2023 NBA Draft 1st round selections on Dereck Lively II and Olivier-Maxence Prosper (OMax), who project to be impactful defenders in their rookie seasons, with the potential for top defenders at their positions when they reach their primes. Second, they swapped out Reggie Bullock for Boston Celtics’ restricted free agent Grant Williams in a 3-team sign-and-trade that saw Bullock go to San Antonio, with various trade compensation swapped between the 3 teams. Williams is the day one starting power forward for the Mavericks and is exactly the type of player that championship contenders feature in their rotation. His size and ability to guard all five positions on the court are something Dallas doesn’t currently possess and adds more flexibility to their defense than even Reggie Bullock at his highest powers couldn’t provide. Throw in that Williams will be just 25 years old in this upcoming season, and this was a major move to propel Dallas from the cellar of NBA defenses.
The draft night additions and the Grant Williams trade combined will not catapult Dallas into a top-10 defense, but it does raise their floor to what kind of defensive team they can aim to be. They are still in the market for another big wing and another center to start & mentor Lively II. There are limited options for Dallas to fill both two remaining voids, but realistically they deserve a solid amount of praise for how they have addressed their defensive woes this off-season. However, I must quote the late, great Kobe Bryant when I say, “The job is not finished.”
Rebounding
Did you hear that sound? You can clearly hear the collective groan from the fans in the American Airlines Center disgusted from yet another offensive rebound surrounded by the Dallas Mavericks that results in a corner 3-pointer scored by a random role player on the opposing team that you have never heard of. Lack of rebounding is possibly a higher issue than defense for the Mavericks, but they exist within the same family of issues as well. Your offense could be better than the Harlem Globetrotters, but if your defense and rebounding are near league-worst then you will still finish 37-45 and the 11th seed in the Western Conference. Dallas embarked on a mission this Summer to no longer have Luka Doncic be their clear-cut #1 rebounder. Doncic has been the leading rebounder for the franchise for most of his time with the franchise. So far, Dallas has swapped out Christian Wood, JaVale McGee, Reggie Bullock & Justin Holiday for Dereck Lively II, Richaun Holmes, OMax & Grant Williams, in terms of core rotation pieces at the forward and center spots. On paper and reputation alone, this should improve the team’s overall rebounding efforts. OMax and Williams have more size and athleticism than Bullock & Holiday possess at this point in their careers. Lively II has shown his rebounding prowess in the summer league, and Holmes should provide a requisite amount of rebounding comparative to Wood & McGee. The question must be asked: Have they done enough? The answer is flatly, no. In a similar light to their additions to their defense, it is commendable the work they have done on addressing their rebounding concerns. But Dallas is still lacking that guaranteed 10-12 rebound per game big man who is going to completely deter the countless second-chance possessions that Dallas gave up this past season. Team collective rebounding is a thing. Dallas is better in this regard, but I still want to see them add a piece or two that has shown to be an elite rebounder at times in their career. I have a hard time putting too much on rookies to make immediate impacts on a consistent basis in any area. An addition like Clint Capela to slate in front of Lively II in the rotation for 1-2 years would be wonderful to provide the rebounding dominance that Dallas seeks. The issue Dallas is going to encounter is that a player like Capela possesses value to all 30 teams in the association, and it’s hard to figure out if Dallas will part with a premium asset to acquire his services. B+ effort to Dallas for their work thus far, but there remains work to be done to officially turn this team into a net-positive in this area.
Youth
“Can we skip to the good part?” If you were waiting for an area that Dallas 100%, no doubt nailed in this most recent transaction cycle, then wait no longer. Dallas addressed their aging roster issues, and they absolutely crushed it. Dallas added 3 rotation players under the age of 25 to go with Luka Doncic, Josh Green & Jaden Hardy, who all are under 25 as well. Simple math tells us that Dallas, as currently constructed, will enter this next season with 6 key rotational players who qualify as young. This youth movement is the exact kind of thing Dallas needed after they have witnessed the past 2 years of aging veterans on their roster who are exiting their primes or who have fallen off the cliff of their prime. Grant Williams is young but has been a part of three Eastern Conference Finals runs with the Boston Celtics within the first four years of his young career. Luka is Luka. Green & Hardy are set to take another leap. The rookies should make, at the very least, a decent amount of impact in their rotational spots throughout the 82-game regular season. There’s not too much else to analyze here. Dallas got younger, which in turn has made Dallas better.
Depth
The best teams in the NBA possess top-end talent paired with enough quality depth to withstand the rigors of an 82-game regular season and potential playoff run. The Denver Nuggets this past season are a perfect example. For Dallas, there is no doubt they possess the top-end talent of a team who should be a contender, but their immediate and end of bench depth could be described as non-existent at the close of the 2022-2023 regular season. Here is a snapshot of the players who have entered and exited the projected 15-man roster for Dallas so far this Summer:
In
Seth Curry
Dante Exum
Richaun Holmes
Dereck Lively II
Olivier-Maxence Prosper
Grant Williams
Out
Davis Bertans
Reggie Bullock
Justin Holiday
JaVale McGee (potentially/expected)
Theo Pinson
Christian Wood
I judge every NBA contender based on their top-10 regular season rotation and their top-8 playoff rotation. Last season, Dallas had numerous players in their regular season rotation that would be end of bench players on contending teams. If they had made the playoffs, it could be argued that Dallas only had 4-5 players you could trust in a playoff series. If you look at the in and out categories above, the players who are no longer with the franchise are largely players who are non-rotational players, apart from Reggie Bullock and Christian Wood. Bullock & Wood could be 7th or 8th man off the bench type roles on a contending team if they locked in and accepted those roles. The others are players who are locker room guys or journeyman who wouldn’t find themselves in the shoes of a playoff rotational player. Grant Williams is a starter-level player in a playoff setting. Holmes & Curry are very solid regular season rotation pieces, and potential for playoff minutes. The rookies will be involved in the rotation and have the potential to make some small impacts in a playoff setting by next April. From roster spot 1 to roster spot 15, Dallas improved. Internal development and better talent acquisition are the perfect pairing for a team who looks to be deep enough for a deep playoff run.
Balance
Just as defense & rebounding lie within the same family of roster issues, so do depth & balance. Another attribute of legit NBA title contenders is a balanced rotation, featuring multiple players at multiple positions who aren’t strictly a specialist. Specialists have their value and role on championship teams, but a full rotation of specialists isn’t very… special. Dallas viewed their best pathway to title contention in the early days of Doncic’s career to be catch & shoot 3&D players who did so at a high level. Problem is, they have never employed more than 1 other player at the same time to be dynamic like Doncic. The early iteration of Kristaps Porzingis saw him fit the bill, until injuries and lack of chemistry resulted in him becoming a corner 3 specialist in his last season with Dallas and previous head coach Rick Carlisle. Jalen Brunson erupted onto the scene in 2022 as a true #2 next to Doncic, but we all know how that story ended. Dallas then traded for Kyrie Irving in 2023. Again, Dallas only had 2 total players you could qualify as purely dynamic. Josh Green showed flashes, as well as Jaden Hardy. But their team consisted of primarily guys who did one thing and one thing only. Wood was a firecracker scorer. Bullock was as pure as 3&D gets. Maxi Kleber is a defense-first specialist. Dwight Powell sets screens (LOL). Long story short, Dallas needed more dynamism out of their role players and those players simply don’t fit that bill.
This Summer, however, Dallas has addressed this area of balance. Green & Hardy’s development counts as a level of internal development needed to expand their overall games. The rookies look to be able to contribute in multiple ways on offense and defense. Grant Williams has a skillset that is elite from beyond the 3-point line, but also the ability to take his defender off the dribble. Seth Curry isn’t strictly a spot-up shooter (when he does, he is arguably one of the best). And that only addressed the offensive side of things. Defensively, the rookies and Grant Williams provide a flexible, dynamic defensive ability that Dallas hasn’t seen in quite some time. And better yet, they are YOUNG. It is much different to have your three best defenders be 29+ years in age comparative to all three being below 25.
Dallas has addressed, not fully, but partly, the need for more dynamic role players. However, they still haven’t achieved the level of balance in terms of positional roster structure. As things stand, with Tim Hardaway Jr. and JaVale McGee’s futures with the franchise in limbo, Dallas employs 6 guards, 5 centers and just 3 wings. The logjam at guard & center could be fixed with potential trades for guys like Hardaway Jr., McGee & Richaun Holmes to bring in more wing depth and/or top-end big man talent. This may be an issue that goes unresolved into the beginning of the regular season, up until the 2024 trade deadline and buyout markets. This isn’t a sink or swim issue for Dallas. They can still have team success with their current construct, but it does lower their ceiling. If Dallas wants to reach the heights that the entire franchise aspires to, then they must solve this problem.