The Dallas Mavericks Saw The Future…

The Dallas Mavericks Saw The Future…

the Dallas Mavericks have made a pretty improbable run to the NBA finals and just like I did for the Celtics a few days ago I wanted to look back at how they built this team how exactly you put together a championship team so that we can learn some things for some teams in the future first and foremost let’s begin of course with Luca Dodges now of course Dallas ends up with LCA in the 2018 draft and we’re all pretty familiar with the story there but I feel like it does need to be mentioned Dallas is at fifth in that draft they love Luca uh Mark cubin has come out and said that they had DeAndre Aton ranked first whereas they had Luca ranked second in the draft and was going to go first they weren’t going to move up for him and they felt like LCA had a chance to be a franchise player so they moved up from 5 to three and an aggressive move to just go up two spots in the draft they traded away a future first round pick to Atlanta Atlanta goes back to five Dallas goes to three they select Luca the Hawks get Trey young and then eventually that first- round pick becomes cam reddish and of course Luca becomes who he is uh right now he’s arguably the second best player in the entire league I think there’s going to be conversations depending on how the finals go as with Luca as maybe the best player in the entire league and I don’t I’m not going to spend too much time on this because I’ve said this in probably 15 videos at this point this the Luca stuff at the time made absolutely no sense he was the youngest MVP in Euro league history he was fantastic in a in a league of of grown men the second best basketball league in the entire world and typically when we have these these European players that come over from the Euro league they’re playing like 15 18 minutes a game Luca was playing a ton and the MVP of the league and I’ve made this case in the past that at his age he was the best European Prospect of all time and I had as the number one Prospect in the draft at the time it made absolutely no sense that he didn’t go to Phoenix first overall given that his national team head coach was the head coach of the Suns of the time it will never ever make sense to me and that’s how Dallas ended up with LCA now the interesting thing is so they get luuka in 2018 all the other significant pieces that they’ve added to the roster as they make this run to the finals have basically been added in the last year and a half with one exception and that includes of course Kyrie Irving who they got at the 2023 trade deadline at the time Kyrie wanted out of Brooklyn um the Nets ended up trading away Kevin Durant as well of course and Kyrie just wanted to go elsewhere and at the time his Market just wasn’t really that vast like it was basically the Lakers maybe and a handful of other teams but there just wasn’t much of a market for Kyrie and the Nets just wanted to get out of the Kyrie business they just wanted to get rid of him so Dallas sent Dorian fin Smith Spencer dwy and a first round pick to Brooklyn and this is going to be one of those things that 10 years from now someone’s going to pull up basketball reference and be like this made no sense why did the nest trade this guy away how did Dallas end up getting Kyrie for such a little amount in return because they’re not going to remember context around it like Kyrie was someone that nobody wanted basically and Dallas was taking a significant risk at the time bringing him in because it’s not like they were this contending team at the time and they were risking you know Kyrie just kind of blowing up that situation the way that he did in Brooklyn I didn’t like the trade at the time I didn’t think that they should have been giving away draft compensation I understood the risk uh you know kind of assessment there but Kyrie also needed a new contract but Dallas they figured it all out and Kyrie has just Fallen back into that that role that he had in Cleveland we were where he was so good alongside LeBron and has just put together exactly what you want Kyrie to be during this postseason run he’s been awesome for Dallas and I give them a ton of credit for this move a move that I don’t think many teams around the league would have made but now we get to really I think the things that truly have put Dallas over the top like Luca Kyrie those guys are the closers those those are the guys that uh you know lead them to wins at the end of game but their Supporting Cast has been incredible not just in the postseason but all season long and that begins with Derrick Jones there’s nothing really to say here about Derrick Jones in terms of how they acquired him they signed him on a minimum deal in the off season like he was just kind of this journeyman role player he could guard good athlete but couldn’t stay on the floor a ton because he couldn’t shoot and Dallas has Unleashed him as this fantastic perimeter defender in the postseason he’s hitting a ton of Threes especially in the corners he’s shooting well from three and he’s been in probably the best value in the entire postseason on just a minimum contract and even though you know it’s not necessarily the most exciting thing to say hey they got him on a minimum contract he had to be mentioned here he’s a starter on a team that’s making the finals which is just not a sentence any body thought they’d be saying about Derrick Jones in the offseason next up we got talk about the two guys that they added at the trade deadline in 2024 like I said a lot of these additions are very recent first up is PJ Washington um I talked about this trade at the time I didn’t really like the PJ Washington trade I didn’t think that he was going to be able to guard very well when you had Luca and Kyrie already there as not great perimeter play Defenders I should say um I just didn’t like the fit obviously it’s been fantastic PJ’s been hitting shots for them didn’t play particularly well in the Conference Finals but it’s just a really good fit alongside kyriea Luca and he’s been guarding well as well they were able to get him from Charlotte in exchange for Seth Curry Grant Williams and a 227 future first round pick uh that the Mavs had one of the reasons I didn’t love the trade for Dallas was that they already gave up a pick swap to get Grant Williams and then they’re giving up more draft compensation to get PJ Washington because the Grant Williams thing just did not work at all um and so they were basically giving up like one and a half picks for for PJ Washington of course it has been worth it didn’t love the deal at the time just another one of those things that I was just wrong about this Maps team I just I just didn’t get a lot of this stuff right next up now is Daniel Gafford a player that I’ve always kind of liked I was kind of indifferent on the deal at the time for Dallas because I thought Derrick likeley was playing really well for them and I didn’t understand the need for more front Court depth uh but they went out and got him for ran Holmes and a first ran Holmes was someone that wasn’t really playing that much for them was basically just an expiring contract for them and a future first- round pick for Daniel Gafford seemed a little bit steep these trades are kind of connected it was this weird conjunction with like OKC where Dallas got extra picks because of a protection on one of the PS and it was just it was it just a very weird situation but essentially that’s how the deals broke down and Gafford has been even like if you look at the plus minus numbers from the Conference Finals Lively has been a lot better than him but he’s a great Lop threat can can defend the rim really well and has just been an awesome addition this awesome onew punch alongside Lively even though he doesn’t really finish games for them often because uh in certain situations he’s just not as good of a playmaker if teams are doubling Luca or Kyrie but he’s been very good provided them great depth and that onew front punch in the front Court alongside Lively has been fantastic for them speaking of Derrik this is arguably the most interesting addition that they have made in this last year and a half because last year Dallas was picking in the lottery they were picking 10th in the draft and the only reason they were picking 10th in the draft is because they intentionally tanked the last few games of the season to make sure that they weren’t in the playing game and they were in the lottery I remember making videos about this at the time saying that that the NBA was going to punish them the NBA went out and and and certainly did that they noticed this it was just something that the NBA is trying to get out of the league for years Dallas was as blatant about it as anybody has ever been they held out Luca they held out all these different guys Luca wasn’t happy about it at the time looking back on it now though like it’s just more proof that tanking works sometimes like Dallas could have ended up with like the 18th pick in the draft they ended up with the 10th they actually moved back to 12 because OKC was willing to take on the Davis bans contract that Dallas had as a result of getting rid of christs porzingis which is another piece of this that we’ll get to in a second second here as well um and Dallas ends up with Derrick Lively and Lively was an interesting Prospect at the time because the physical tools were clearly there had a disappointing College season and people were curious about what his role would be at the NBA level it was clear what he could be good at as exactly what he’s been in Dallas someone with a little bit of onall creation and some of the short roll situations um but just great rim protector great athlete Lop thread at the rim and obviously Dallas targeted that as an option for them with Gafford and and Lively being in similar roles but Lively has been way better than anybody would have expected him to be this season and has been a critical integral part arguably at times the third best player on the maps throughout this postseason run and it’s all because they lost the last couple of games of the season and of course move back in the draft a little bit as well OKC by the way got uh K Wallace by the way moving up to 10 in that draft and the last guy here in terms of like kind of the top rotation players is Josh GRE they picked 18th in 2020 and is kind of really developed over the years but there’s one more kind of thread One More Story here about how Dallas was able to build this team and it’s all the different versions that came before Dallas has never been afraid since Luca got there to change things around to move pieces around I mentioned having Grant Williams before but the big one previously kind of like the Kyrie trade before the Kyrie trade this distressed asset this this piece that they felt would fit really well alongside Luca was christops porzingis they’ve traded for christops porzingis from the Knicks when uh the Knicks wouldn’t give him this big contract extension Dallas stepped up they were going to give him the extension there was injury concerns uh in New York uh and obviously him not wanting to be there anymore was a concern as well Dallas figured hey these two guys are going to work really well together I liked that deal a lot of the time they didn’t really give up a ton in my mind and I felt like KP was going to be a really good fit alongside Luca at the time our our evaluation of KP just as the basketball Community as a whole was very very high and it just never worked like there was injury stuff with with porzingis him and Lucas games didn’t really fit super well together they asked him to do a ton of pick and pop stuff whereas now with Washington uh last year as well as with Boston this year um the game moreo went to like how can we get switches for porzingis where he punish his guys in the post he’s gotten better in the post of course he a good Flor spacer great rim protector as well he just wasn’t used that way in Dallas like they tried to post him up but he just wasn’t that good in the post he was shooting a lot of these weird kind of turnaround jumpers confidence level was low I don’t think him and LCA got along super well and so they end up moving on from that contract What was seen as one of the worst contracts in the league at the time they got back deny and Berton from Washington and then of course we’ve talked about how each of those pieces got moved out um in the Kyrie trade for den wiy and then bton in the Lively trade where they mooved back from 10 to 12 in that draft and it’s interesting how they were bble to just immediately pivot out of the porzingis thing and within 18 to 24 months have pieces that have now been integral to them getting to the postseason of course also there are multiple pieces here that are also connected to Dallas with porzingis now being on the Celtics and Kyrie formerly with the Celtics now with the MF so very interesting winding journey in terms of how the Mavs were able to put together a team that is now four wins away from an NBA title

The Dallas Mavericks are in the 2024 NBA Finals, and their path to getting there with Luka Doncic, Kristaps Porzingis, Kyrie Irving, Dereck Lively, PJ Washington and others is really interesting.

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