Get To Know Melvin Ajinca, The Newest Dallas Mavericks Draft Pick | The Get Right

Get To Know Melvin Ajinca, The Newest Dallas Mavericks Draft Pick | The Get Right

we did have to stay ready a little bit it was day two of the NBA draft earlier today and this is the day where the Mavericks actually had a draft pick except it kind of happened and unless you were actually listening to the TV broadcast you might not have caught you would have no idea that the Mavs had uh made some shifts made a little bit of a trade not one that breaks the breaks the internet or anything to that sort however the Mavericks uh who previously had hold or claim over the number 58 pick overall the 20 28th pick of the second round and also the final pick of the draft they move up seven spots and trade with the New York Knicks to get the 51st pick to do and to select this gentleman here Ross if you can help me out um it’s not even he didn’t even get uh Mark Tatum the uh the uh what is it the um the commencement the announcement the assistant commissioner I guess I remember what his name is the vice commissioner whatever his name is go to him just big old smile big smile um so obviously Adam Silver not making the not making the selections uh red uh during the second round it’s Mark Tatum uh even he didn’t do this we had to get it coming back from break from Malik Andrews you are watching the 2024 NBA draft presented by State Farm Melvin ainka was just selected by the Knicks but this pick is now on its way to the Dallas Mavericks that’s right that was it right that’s that that was the that was the audio that we’re going to use forever and that we’ll ever uh forever have for the newest Dallas Maverick Mel aens um so yes welcome to uh small forward um out of and I’ve already forgotten France that’s right apparently France is dominating the NBA draft I’m going to try to pronounce the school club he was playing St Quinton basketball there you go 68 218 lbs I at 67 I’ve seen him at 66 as well I’ve seen all I’m on nba.com right now they okay so that’s the official all right we’re going to go with that 68 220 is what said 218 218 and so small forward born in 2004 if that makes you feel old at all turn 20 um Alex aena average 10 10 points three rebounds and a half a steal per game in his last situation in France the breakdown that I have of him as a player he has a robust physique as you can tell 220 pounds uh ability to operate as a left-handed Wing So a lefty uh for whatever that’s worth streaky three-point shooting ability consistent high energy on the court uh energy definitely that jumped out to me when I saw that versatility playing across various positions based on matchup requirements which basically feels like he’s kind of just the wing maybe he can get down Club down a little bit to maybe kind of a guard depending strong handle confidence in taking shots um exhibiting significant shot creation potential excels in straight line drives transition attacks Cuts uh ambidextrious scoring ability so both going both left and right solid Defender with potential for for improvement uh and he shows ability to drain threes off of screens and handall so like kind of that all of this you have to remember though when you have a second round player in the NBA it’s a project usually or it’s a guy who does not have a high ceiling so you hear all these things about he’s a streaky shooter but he has the potential defensive potential right has the opportunity and so cuz if these guys were proven Commodities they’d go top 10 in the draft they would go absolutely lottery pick maybe even later in the first round so you have this back end of the first round guy and that’s all his strength you can talk about the weaknesses where not a lot of experience running pick and roll which that one should definitely perk your ears up because the Mavericks do a lot of pick and roll um limited off ball contributions as of right now um we talk about the his you know sometime I guess the idea that maybe he can maybe make some plays at some point in the future but as of right now his assist to turnover your ratio has not been great fouls a decent amounts so this is a guy that don’t expect to see him impact the Mavericks um next year but the idea is this is a guy who’s a project who the upside seems to be big on so Melvin aens out of France drafted at 51 um for your Mavericks technically he gets drafted to the Knicks as the NBA uh goes but is there anything else for you Blake that you see out of this or is just like all right that’s nice but uh let’s move on to the important parts of the offseason yes so I just want to get the the trade because it took everyone I was at the Mavs kind of draft party as they were about to put the pick in and everybody in the room senior Riders Young Riders nobody had any idea how we moved up to pick 51 because everyone’s phones were getting locked out of Twitter there was no reports really going on so here is what the Dallas Mavericks put out the Dallas Mavericks acquired the draft rights to the 51st overall pick who ends up being Melvin um in the draft in exchanged to from New York for Ariel hotty who was the final pick of the draft he was 58 so basically that’s the swap between 51 and 58 in addition to that the Mavericks also sent the rights to pet pater cap in the 30th overall pick in 2007 yeah cash considerations and then cash so yeah I mean basically just a little bit of money the rights to a player who I mean you don’t ever ever anticipate playing for you um but yeah an opportunity to get this player that clearly if you’re moving up for you have some level of liking for yep and that that was kind of where I was at where me and Reggie said this guy is not going to be heavily in the rotation next year Nico even hinted he might stay in Europe this upcoming season he is young like it’s not a it’s not a full-blown plan that he’s going to be on the roster rotation I believe he still technically hasn’t hit his 20th birthday yeah I I think I think Nico said he turned 20 yesterday okay was what it it just happened but this is a guy that had a lot of Promise in the French league in the when he was in the B League that he was the I believe a player of the year over there in the second division of second division and then he went to the a League last year and had a season high of 19 points average around 9 and a half points throughout the season so he’s had moments of greatness and the I think in the u9 Camp when he was uh younger playing for the French national team led them to a silver medal averaging over 19 points some there’s been some different draft grade Zack Buckley of bleach report gives him a B+ has the makings of a quality athletic 3 and D Wing there aren’t a lot of avenues for him to grow out of that role but it’s fine when you’re at the 51st pick especially when that archetype is exactly what Dallas wants to put around Kyrie and Luca Jin needs to be more impactful in specific areas while it looks like his movement shooting will translate to the NBA there you go I I saw that a lot in his highlights he was a lot of these threes were off balance kind of coming off screens or even with with the ball in his hands kind of making some shot crazing for him so it doesn’t seem to be not confident which the thing we saw with some of the role players on the Mavs in the playoffs was confidence this guy looks very confident at a young age has obviously played for the French national team the youth the youth team and whatnot so I I think obviously someone that’s down the down the line of future project but I like what I saw they moved up for him for a reason so yeah I mean and this is just you see traits this is very much kind of the future aspect of it but um on the truck wreck. or the Frankl and Frankl injury attorney text line rather 877 881 1053 where you can always get involved with the program from the a817 they said it sounds like a drik Jones Jr replacement and oh no baby let me stop you there right Alex uh I told you I was going to do it Melvin aenta is I mean his cousin who had played in the league prior uh Alexis aens we should mentioned that um he he played a little while back uh in the league maybe about five years ago on the 20 team he was a part of that champion I think he might have got let go at some point but he was on theer at some on the roster in 2011 but but I mean with that being the case uh Melvin jensa is not is not a player that’s going to factor in this team right now and I mean he might be a player that you you develop to ultimately become a role player it seems like kind of the high cap that you’re looking at or maybe if the project goes very very well he’s kind of a featured role player that can start in Year’s future but as of right now the Mavericks are in a place where you just came off of an NBA Finals run you have Luca donic entering his prime you have Kyrie Irving kind of in the middle towards the back end of his prime this is a win Now situation that’s not a win now selection and so where does the off season now go for your Dallas Mavericks and it feels like objective actually not even feels like Nico Harrison has said objective 1 a and 1B is returning drick Jones Jr to the fold and I’m on the same page with that I really want to get your thoughts on this we’ve talked about it a couple times I’ve talked about it with some of the other people around the Mavs Derek J Jr bringing him back seems to be the focal point of the Dallas Mavericks and I am all for that I like him as a player I like him as a person like the energy he brings to this team gives you that point of attack defense is a guy that’s going to I think there was a stat put out the other day that um Defenders who spent the most time against like a ball handle like a scoring ball handler and it was Derrick Jones Jr at the very top of the list he is taking the toughest assignment night in and night out now it’s hard just to replace be oh we’ll just get another Defender I just don’t know if the offensive output if there there obviously is limit limitations we saw it in the playoffs if you run back the same starting five knowing those limitations can be there now obviously they could grow first postseason first Finals maybe that was just Jitters I wouldn’t be mad if Derrick Jones Jr was back brought back on a more limited role and you tried to upgrade that three position whether that be a cam Johnson whether that be a Trey Murphy who insert whatever player you want the maps to get I I do want him to be brought back I just feel like the money you’re going to bring him back for you’re looking at probably upwards of $10 million if I had to guess yeah it’s it’s if if I had my best guess right the place where you want to be with Derrick Jones Jr somewhere in that 1213 range which conveniently if you are outside of the taxpaying window you could you have access to what they call the tax non- tax mid-level exception which means that you have 12 to13 million where you can kind of use as an exception that’s not considered in that salary cap why the Mavs are trying to move off Tim Hardway which is I know fans may have a certain type of it’s it’s the player as well but also Tim Hardway Jr is making the third most money on this team at around 18 17 million so they’re trying to move off of that not just for the player but for the money that it’s taking to keep that player so they can go and pay a guy like Derrick Jones yeah and so that’s that’s the entire path for the Mavericks and even that is a very is not the easiest path to navigate Nico Harrison is familiar with that place being in that place where you have to try and really thread a needle in order to get the job done hell look at the last couple of off Seasons or the last couple of uh kind of transition Windows if you want to talk about the trade deadline and then the off seasons and those types of things where in order to turn over this roster he’s had to make very shrewd decisions and kind of play chess as opposed to Checkers so to say but in order to get Derek Jones Junior resign you have to get to that mid-level exception which means you have to find a way to get off of some money Lively or likely rather Tim Hardway Jr you would have to send him if you were doing just sending Tim Hardway Jr and bringing back money you have to bring in less or like I think less than 4.2 million somewhere in there can’t just straight up dump somebody so like even then with all of the new CBA rules and look I’m not going to inundate you with those things it’s not the easiest path forward and that’s why I know that you started talking about I know there’s been a lot of conversations about Tobias haris about um Jeremy Grant even now as we’ve seen the Brooklyn Nets clearly going to uh fire sell mode although I’m hesitant to call it fire cell specifically cuz I think they’re still going to want to get some value off of those pieces that they’re selling they’re open for business or sorry uh Dorian finny Smith love him cam Johnson as you mentioned all these guys are that are kind of interesting they’ll take a level of nego navigating just to get to and right now it feels like the simplest path forward is already a level of difficulty and it’s moving Tim Hardway Jr in a way that gives you the cap flexibility in order to bring back J Derrick Jones Jr and trusting that that team that you have is strong enough for the most part that you can go and run it back with the advancement and development and the opportunity to be cohesive over a season cuz remember this team basically came together at the trade deadline you brought in two major pieces in Gafford and PJ Washington at the trade deadline and so they they only really had a couple of months to form together I I wonder if the development the larger development not saying that Nico Harrison is not going to look to get better but even if you take I think this the most simple path forward for the Mavericks there’s still opportunities to maybe get better just by being more cohesive of his team and seeing the development of some of these guys in what you have yeah I I I think there’s a lot of internal development that could happen with the Dallas Mavericks you have a lot of good players under your umbrella under team control that are young so the more and more you start to develop these guys the more you don’t have to go pay Big Time free agents because you already have those guys in house and we saw how far they got you I I don’t even know if you have room to pay free agents it would have to be some Manu maneuvering but we’re early on in the process as we mentioned there’s a lot of names that have been tied to the Mavericks but um we were hoping that during the course of the draft because this is usually a time where some deals get made during the draft we didn’t see very many like deals for players outside of the draft right we saw some some trades made for picks but we didn’t really see other players getting moved off you know some other veterans moving from Team to team I imagine that now that we’re through the draft maybe you’ll see some moves like that and obviously the one that the Mavericks are looking or that you’re looking for with the Mavericks is Tim Hardway Jr where we already even got reporting that the Mavericks are working with Tim Hardway Junior’s agent to help facilitate something to obviously get him to a place where he’s comfortable but obviously help the Maverick get off of that salary and get them into the place um that would be beneficial so that’s where the next move is the the big uh names that you should also watch for when it comes to teams the Detroit Pistons were reported as a team that could possibly be a landing spot right so a team that you know has maybe someone like Quinton Grimes who’s around that number that you’re trying to get back a young player a shooter um could play a little a little bit of Defense but kind of a little bit of a wing in that way that would be a guy you look at or the Wizards have popped up in reporting by markk Stein as as uh kind of potential Pairs and so let me ask you this do you think this is as simple as soon as next couple of days that we start seeing or do you think this is going to take a while uh I think for Tim it’s if it I thought it was going to get done on draft night the fact that it didn’t I think we might have to wait until maybe summer League’s over you see how some of these guys develop and what I mean I would you think that far I’m not even sure I don’t think it will really get that far but I just felt like it was going to get done on draft night so I I’m sure Nico is cooking couple days till free agency really gets kicking off and I think that that’s when we’ll really again see um I wouldn’t be surprised a lot of uh a lot of action happening but there you go new Maverick Melvin jensa I mean looks like he’ll be a future uh situation in fact Blake you were at uh the Mavs training camp training facility where they had the the conversations after and you said that uh he was Nico seemed very excited to to get him picked up he said he’s but he might he might even stay stash in Europe he was just like with the versatility of him being young and we don’t have a lot of rosters spot there’s no like guarantee of exactly where he be to we’re just going to have to play by play by year take it a step by step and figure out where he’s most comfortable at so whether that’s in Europe whether it’s on the summer league two-way on the roster up the weight [Music]

The Mavs made a trade in the 2nd round of the NBA Draft yesterday, acquiring the rights to French small forward Melvin Ajinca in exchange for the 58th pick and cash considerations. The Get Right analyzes a player who might not help the Mavs immediately but could be a factor later down the line.

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