Best rotation for team defense, rim protection and rebounding.

[ozwizard8]

The challenging part for the Mavs this year will be team defense, rim protection, and rebounding. Is there a rotation that Mavs can have decent defense-rebounding while not sinking the offense?

Mavs center rotation is not reliable as of now. While the Mavs have potentially good defensive wings in Green, Prosper, Maxi, Grant, we are not sure if we can play two defensive wings+center.
Essentially, this team has two negative defenders in Kyrie and Luka. For offense, if Kidd needs THJ, Seth, or Hardy with the Kyrie-Luka duo, is it possible to defend NBA teams?

Lets define three metrics to grade defense.
Team defense: Players mobility and defensive IQ for rotations + 1-on-1 defensive skills
Rim protection: Center's rim protection + wing players weak-side help
Rebounding: Size, height and feel for rebound.

Rotation 1: Kyrie-Luka-Green-Grant-Powell is a likely starting rotation.
Team defense: 4
Green-Grant-Powell are mobile players who can defend multiple positions, bring help.
Rim protection: 2
Powell cannot protect the rim. Grant-Green have good size and athleticism but its not elite enough for NBA to create Aaron Gordon-Jerami Grant type of weak side rim protection.
Rebounding: 4
Kyrie-Powell are bad but Luka-Grant-Green are good rebounders.

Rotation 2: Kyrie-Luka-THJ-Grant-Lively as more offensive firepower rotation. THJ can be replaced with Seth with similar result.
Team defense: 2
Adding THJ to Kyrie-Luka just makes it drop due to personnel. No perimeter defenders at all for this rotation.
Rim protection: 2
Lively offers some rim protection but since there are 3 bad defenders, opposing teams can easily take Lively out of paint and beat their bad defenders. Not much weak side rim protection here. Luka rotating from weak side against a big man will not be enough.
Rebounding: 3
It looks like Lively is not a bad rebounder like Powell but having Kyrie-THJ make it worse.

Rotation 3: Kyrie-Luka-Grant-Maxi-Holmes as a bigger lineup alternative.
Team defense: 4
Grant-Maxi-Holmes have enough NBA experience, and defensive BBIQ to make rotations. This roster can contain some wing players like Kawhi-PG duo.
Rim protection: 3
Maxi and Grant from each side would offer some level of rim protection. Holmes can challenge some shots as well/
Rebounding: 5
This roster should be a good rebounding team.

Rotation 3 would offer a better defense, but having Grant-Maxi-Holmes frontcourt may be too slow for offensive sets, and three players that cannot drive or create their own score would be detrimental for offense. Not a good fastbreak team either. Holmes may clog the paint. Still, Kyrie-Luka may be good enough to score and assist on their own.

[Maverick41]

Defensively, the one I'm interested is Luka/Exum/Green/Grant/Lively. Can interchange Lively with Maxi depending on matchups. Locked in defensively Luka is a solid defender, the problem is ensuring he's locked in on that end (which isn't often). And the Exum + Green pressuring full court has potential. It's a matter of whether both those guys can be consistent enough on offense.

[Mavrelous]

Green/Exum/Luka/Maxi/Lively
Strong perimeter defenders, stong wing defense، rim protection and rebounding, very swithable, Maxi covers the rim if Lively is switched on the perimeter.
Short bursts lineup to keep Maxi fresh.
Offensively challenged thogh.

[ozwizard8]

Defensively, the one I'm interested is Luka/Exum/Green/Grant/Lively. Can interchange Lively with Maxi depending on matchups. Locked in defensively Luka is a solid defender, the problem is ensuring he's locked in on that end (which isn't often). And the Exum + Green pressuring full court has potential. It's a matter of whether both those guys can be consistent enough on offense.

This is a strong defensive lineup but I guess it is not a main rotation. I am not sure if we close a game without Kyrie, he'd ask out immediately.

Another critical aspect is Exum-Green shooting. If they are not deadly on open 3s, Luka will get exhausted in this lineup to find any space.

Even if one of the Exum-Green shoots reliably this season, it would be great to have. Luka would look good on defense if he plays with two perimeter 'dogs'. It is like playing two 6'11 forwards with Jokic to bring rim protection.

Exum-Green are both athletic guys too. That type of lineup would motivate Luka to run more fastbreaks.

[jpengland]

I think Exum will be starting by all star break.

[tleikheen]

It looks like 6'5 PG) Exum and 6'2" PG) Kyrie will start for Mavs on friday against Detroit. They will probably face 6'7" PG) Cade Cunningham/6'7" SG) Ausar Thompson .This will be an interesting challenge .Lets see if Exum and Kyrie can turn on the jets and see them score in the 120's tomorrow.

[ozwizard8]

It looks like 6'5 PG) Exum and 6'2" PG) Kyrie will start for Mavs on friday against Detroit. They will probably face 6'7" PG) Cade Cunningham/6'7" SG) Ausar Thompson .This will be an interesting challenge .Lets see if Exum and Kyrie can turn on the jets and see them score in the 120's tomorrow.

Exum would be fine with his athleticism in general. But considering Kyrie being very small, it becomes hard to hide him while Luka is also on court.

[eminence]

My first try for main lineup would be Kyrie/Luka/Green/Williams/Kleber.

Unless Lively comes in significantly more ready than I'm expecting I don't think rim protection is something y'all can hope for this season, so to hell with it, just try to outscore folks.

[Mavrelous]

My first try for main lineup would be Kyrie/Luka/Green/Williams/Kleber.

Unless Lively comes in significantly more ready than I'm expecting I don't think rim protection is something y'all can hope for this season, so to hell with it, just try to outscore folks.

Maxi has looked washed ever since he came back from injury last year, including this preseason.
Lively looked legit rim protector, his issues are on offense, mainly screening.

[41Dirk41]

Lively is our only hope, he will make some mistakes but we need his size.

[kacey ring]

Don’t sleep on DJJ. He’s been rumored to be a starter too. He might be one of our better defenders.

I’ll be watching to see how Kidd balances O and D when staggering Luka and Ky’s mins. Last year that staggering was at the end of 1Q/start of 2Q and then same for 3Q/4Q if the game flow allowed. Be interesting to see who Jones gets staggered with.

[ozwizard8]

Don’t sleep on DJJ. He’s been rumored to be a starter too. He might be one of our better defenders.

I’ll be watching to see how Kidd balances O and D when staggering Luka and Ky’s mins. Last year that staggering was at the end of 1Q/start of 2Q and then same for 3Q/4Q if the game flow allowed. Be interesting to see who Jones gets staggered with.

DJJ looked like someone you can sleep on.
Both DJJ and Holmes are closer to going out of the league than playing starter role. I just hope at least one of them to improve his game/consistency to play solid 15 mpg.

Defense/rebounding is really key for us. We let Spurs score 40+ pts in a quarter. And the way they scored did not look like a fluke. It was not like some SG chucking lucky 3pt shots. Its just our defense looks exploitable easily even by a subpar team.

Lively looked much better than most expected including me. Just hope he can stay on the court. Stay out of foul trouble, and hopefully no injuries. He can eventually hit the rookie wall. Playing NBA season is tough. So we'll need someone to step up.

Luka is putting offensive clinic. Its just we need to figure out defense around him. Luka arguably even better offensive power than Dirk due to his playmaking. He is not behind Jokic. Both are triple-double machines. You just need a good defensive/rebounding team around those. Luka made WCF with above-average defense. He can do that again.

[kacey ring]

Don’t sleep on DJJ. He’s been rumored to be a starter too. He might be one of our better defenders.

I’ll be watching to see how Kidd balances O and D when staggering Luka and Ky’s mins. Last year that staggering was at the end of 1Q/start of 2Q and then same for 3Q/4Q if the game flow allowed. Be interesting to see who Jones gets staggered with.

DJJ looked like someone you can sleep on.
Both DJJ and Holmes are closer to going out of the league than playing starter role. I just hope at least one of them to improve his game/consistency to play solid 15 mpg.

DJJ definitely doesn’t seem like a starter, so I was surprised by that. Must have been turning some heads in practice tho.

I think he’s more than capable of being a solid 15 min bench guy. Especially when the team needs a spark. 26/27 years old and still athletic and active on D.

[ozwizard8]

Don’t sleep on DJJ. He’s been rumored to be a starter too. He might be one of our better defenders.

I’ll be watching to see how Kidd balances O and D when staggering Luka and Ky’s mins. Last year that staggering was at the end of 1Q/start of 2Q and then same for 3Q/4Q if the game flow allowed. Be interesting to see who Jones gets staggered with.

DJJ looked like someone you can sleep on.
Both DJJ and Holmes are closer to going out of the league than playing starter role. I just hope at least one of them to improve his game/consistency to play solid 15 mpg.

DJJ definitely doesn’t seem like a starter, so I was surprised by that. Must have been turning some heads in practice tho.

I think he’s more than capable of being a solid 15 min bench guy. Especially when the team needs a spark. 26/27 years old and still athletic and active on D.

Being 26-27 years old with a recent history of playing 15 mpg on subpar teams is not a plus for a player that relies on athleticism. I hope he can make the leap but his athleticism is not creating wonders on neither on defense or on offense. If he lose his spot in rotation, he may be out of league in few years.

[41Dirk41]

DJJ is a RS role player at max. His career spoke for him.

[ozwizard8]

I am in trouble for my DJJ comments after last game

[41Dirk41]

I am in trouble for my DJJ comments after last game

[kacey ring]

I am in trouble for my DJJ comments after last game

You were just doing the reverse psychology thing. It’s been working pretty well on the Mavs board this year

[mxr2000]

Now the thing is that we have defense but most of our defensive player are not strong to hadle strong player like what you see on Denver.

[ozwizard8]

Now the thing is that we have defense but most of our defensive player are not strong to hadle strong player like what you see on Denver.

It takes a lot of trade assets to acquire such elite defensive/rebounding players.
It also take a lot of salary cap to retain them.

I loved what I saw from Grant and Green, and liked how DJJ played so far but they do not have that elite size-athleticism.
MPJ and Gordon are simply too tall and they also have athleticism. On top of that, the Denver team has KCP at 6'5 for SG. We use Grant Williams at 6'6 for PF.

While Kyrie was injured we had some lineups with:

Luka-Green-Grant-DJJ-Lively.

Playing Green at SG, Grant at SF then you are not in size disadvantage. Luka compared to other teams PG would have advantage for rebounding and size too. (DJJ is not too tall but his athleticism is exceptional to add up)

When Kyrie-Luka-Green-Grant-Lively lineup is on the court:
- Team becomes undersized in multiple positions. Grant at PF could be okay for 1-on-1 defense but for all other plays, rebounding, rim-protection, it takes a toll.
- When Kyrie plays, we try to hide him on defense as he is too small. Then we also need to hide Luka. Now 40% of the team becomes defensive liability. Other 3 frontcourt matchup is like this:

MPJ-Gordon-Jokic. ($103m per year, avg height is almost 7-ft)
Green-Grant-Lively. ($22m per year)

Instead of paying Kyrie, we should've got players like Gordon. Or at least two-way SF like Paul George-Leonard etc.