RS 22/23 - Mavs vs Nuggets (Sunday, 7:30PM EST)

[Maverick41]

Kidd pulled the same thing in Milwaukee. The players that he favored loved him and they fought to keep him as coach because they knew they were guaranteed playing time. The other half of the team checked out after the first season because they knew they were in the dog house no matter what they did. He’s just like Larry Brown in that regard.

This isn’t all on coaching and Kidd, however. The Mavs have played down and played up against opponents under Carlisle and now they’re doing it under Kidd. A team should not be losing against a Denver team without Joker, Murray, and Gordon even if the coach is a potato. So yes, Kidd’s rotations and substitutions are garbage but so is the team’s mentality when it comes to competing. They have lost so many give me games this season because of effort. Carlisle can’t fix that and neither can Kidd. No one can other than the players.

I believe it's mostly on coach, if 3 players, who scored 8 points with 2/19 shooting, played 82 minutes. Bertans on the other hand has played 14 minutes and has scored 15 points with just 7 shots and had far the best +/- with +21, so you can't say he was unplayable because of his bad D.

Bullock, who had far the worst -25 +/-, has played 14 bad games in this season but is still cemented as starter. 5 points with unbelievable 31 Fg% in big 29 minutes makes him the worst starter in Nba. THJ is similar bad with 31.5 Fg%. And to finish this trio, you have DFS with 8 points and 41 Fg% with huge 33 minutes. Wood on the other hand is averaging 16.6/7.5 with 57 Fg% in just 24 minutes. Something is rotten in the state of Texas.

Kidd&friends should go as soon as possible and take Nico with them.

You can’t blame it on the coach when they’ve had two consecutive coaches who have done a fine job. It’s on the roster. Kidd overperformed last year and I honestly believe he took this roster as far as they can possibly go—the Western conference finals. Kidd and Carlisle had Luka and no true second option to coach around. The roster is garbage. It’s supposed to be full of three and defensive guys, but the defense and three point shooting is so up and down across the board it simply doesn’t work. Players like DFS and Bullock and Kleiber are asked to do too much and they’re treated like they’re second options when they’re role players (we’re talking fourth and fifth options) on a championship team. No coach can get what Kidd got out of this roster last season. Unless someone like Bradley Beal is walks through that door then the coach is completely screwed with this roster construction.

How many times do DFS and Bullock drive to the basket or shoot free throws? You try winning with that.

I agree. If there's a blame pie, imo it's 1) Nico for roster construction, 2) Kidd for lack of offensive creativity and very suspect rotations and 3) Players effort, particularly against short handed teams.

[Bob8]

I believe it's mostly on coach, if 3 players, who scored 8 points with 2/19 shooting, played 82 minutes. Bertans on the other hand has played 14 minutes and has scored 15 points with just 7 shots and had far the best +/- with +21, so you can't say he was unplayable because of his bad D.

Bullock, who had far the worst -25 +/-, has played 14 bad games in this season but is still cemented as starter. 5 points with unbelievable 31 Fg% in big 29 minutes makes him the worst starter in Nba. THJ is similar bad with 31.5 Fg%. And to finish this trio, you have DFS with 8 points and 41 Fg% with huge 33 minutes. Wood on the other hand is averaging 16.6/7.5 with 57 Fg% in just 24 minutes. Something is rotten in the state of Texas.

Kidd&friends should go as soon as possible and take Nico with them.

You can’t blame it on the coach when they’ve had two consecutive coaches who have done a fine job. It’s on the roster. Kidd overperformed last year and I honestly believe he took this roster as far as they can possibly go—the Western conference finals. Kidd and Carlisle had Luka and no true second option to coach around. The roster is garbage. It’s supposed to be full of three and defensive guys, but the defense and three point shooting is so up and down across the board it simply doesn’t work. Players like DFS and Bullock and Kleiber are asked to do too much and they’re treated like they’re second options when they’re role players (we’re talking fourth and fifth options) on a championship team. No coach can get what Kidd got out of this roster last season. Unless someone like Bradley Beal is walks through that door then the coach is completely screwed with this roster construction.

How many times do DFS and Bullock drive to the basket or shoot free throws? You try winning with that.

I agree. If there's a blame pie, imo it's 1) Nico for roster construction, 2) Kidd for lack of offensive creativity and very suspect rotations and 3) Players effort, particularly against short handed teams.

I believe it's normal that someone has a bad shooting day, but something is wrong with coaching, if someone, who's shooting 0:9 is playing much more than a player, who's scoring 15 points in 7 shots or if a coach decides not to play his second best scorer, when everyone is mostly off.

[41Dirk41]

Kidd pulled the same thing in Milwaukee. The players that he favored loved him and they fought to keep him as coach because they knew they were guaranteed playing time. The other half of the team checked out after the first season because they knew they were in the dog house no matter what they did. He’s just like Larry Brown in that regard.

This isn’t all on coaching and Kidd, however. The Mavs have played down and played up against opponents under Carlisle and now they’re doing it under Kidd. A team should not be losing against a Denver team without Joker, Murray, and Gordon even if the coach is a potato. So yes, Kidd’s rotations and substitutions are garbage but so is the team’s mentality when it comes to competing. They have lost so many give me games this season because of effort. Carlisle can’t fix that and neither can Kidd. No one can other than the players.

I believe it's mostly on coach, if 3 players, who scored 8 points with 2/19 shooting, played 82 minutes. Bertans on the other hand has played 14 minutes and has scored 15 points with just 7 shots and had far the best +/- with +21, so you can't say he was unplayable because of his bad D.

Bullock, who had far the worst -25 +/-, has played 14 bad games in this season but is still cemented as starter. 5 points with unbelievable 31 Fg% in big 29 minutes makes him the worst starter in Nba. THJ is similar bad with 31.5 Fg%. And to finish this trio, you have DFS with 8 points and 41 Fg% with huge 33 minutes. Wood on the other hand is averaging 16.6/7.5 with 57 Fg% in just 24 minutes. Something is rotten in the state of Texas.

Kidd&friends should go as soon as possible and take Nico with them.

You can’t blame it on the coach when they’ve had two consecutive coaches who have done a fine job. It’s on the roster. Kidd overperformed last year and I honestly believe he took this roster as far as they can possibly go—the Western conference finals. Kidd and Carlisle had Luka and no true second option to coach around. The roster is garbage. It’s supposed to be full of three and defensive guys, but the defense and three point shooting is so up and down across the board it simply doesn’t work. Players like DFS and Bullock and Kleiber are asked to do too much and they’re treated like they’re second options when they’re role players (we’re talking fourth and fifth options) on a championship team. No coach can get what Kidd got out of this roster last season. Unless someone like Bradley Beal is walks through that door then the coach is completely screwed with this roster construction.

How many times do DFS and Bullock drive to the basket or shoot free throws? You try winning with that.

Shhhhhhh!!! It's dangerous write those things... A lot of posters here were very happy about our last 2 off seasons. They addressed us like haters,no Mavs fans or Luka lovers.

Oh wait... Where are they now? Disappeared?

[Archx]

Some updated statistics from main Mavs players.


Dinwiddie 58.5% TS -18.3 ON/OFF (Team worst)
Luka 60% TS ........+5.5 (was the only positive impact guy on in the starting lineup until Powell replaced McGee)
Bullock 44% TS.......-13 (2nd worst)
DFS 53.6% TS........-11.8 (4th worst)
Powell 68% TS........+8.1 (Powell has been absolutely better than McGee in the starting unit. But if a team is forced to start Powell then you know it's bad.)

Green 78% TS ..... +13.7
Bertans 72% TS ....+46 ( Only 3 games played so this number will go down drastically. )
Wood 66% TS .......+9
THJ 48% TS .........+5 (It's also an example why we can't purely take On/Off numbers seriously and we have to look at other aspects aswell such as lineups, which i will go into details below)
Maxi 50.6% TS......-4

When we go further into details regarding pure LINEUP COMBINATIONS, we see that 2 things stand out. With lineups that produce BEST points relative to the opponent we see that Green and Wood are in ALL of those lineups. Problem is, these lineups also feature Bullock, which we can see that he's also in all NEGATIVE lineups along with THJ and DFS. These positive lineups are being absolutely carried by PLUS guys while being dragged down by NEGATIVE guys. How can we tell that? Because you can compare other advance stats+shooting. I won't go into all tiny details because this could get 3 pages long lol.

But if we then combine all those metrics (shooting, passing, defense, even eye test if you want...) We can easily figure out that it is clear as a day why some starters have such horrible On/Off metrics.

At the end of the day, why are Mavs 9-7 right now?


Because Kidd is not playing important guys together, simple as that. Sure Luka needs to take some blame for those losses but i'm honestly not going to go into details about a guy who is producing MVP season so far.

Wood 24.6 MPG ( Even 25mpg for him is low, now he's fallen below that benchmark)
Green 19 MPG ( Can't even crack 20mpg even though he's having MUCH MUCH better shooting and defensive season than THJ and Bullock and even DFS)
Bertans 7 MPG (Clearly the best spacer Mavs have. Sure his defense is below average but at least he can do stuff THJ, Bullock can not).

THJ 24.5 MPG (In my opinion, that's 5-10mpg more than he should be getting at this point)
Bullock 29 MPG (Same opinion as for THJ)

The biggest question mark so far for me are Powell, Maxi and McGee.

Powell can be good but he was dominated by freaking DAJ. McGee again in some limited opposing matchups can be good and he was good but he doesn't give any effort to play defense and gets exploited a lot. Maxi has been hit and a miss so far. His defense is there sometimes but offense tanked a lot, so he is also basically more or less useless in most games.


Mavs simply have too many people who are only good against a favorable opponent and then you have a suspect coach who simply can't tie everything together and can't figure out who should be on the floor in the last 5-8 minutes of the game.

9-7 that could soon turn into 9-12.

[Bob8]

It looks to me that the biggest problem is no one competent enough to set priorities and some kind of a working plan for the future. It's basically Kidd doing whatever he wants.

[Absinthe]

Some updated statistics from main Mavs players.


Dinwiddie 58.5% TS -18.3 ON/OFF (Team worst)
Luka 60% TS ........+5.5 (was the only positive impact guy on in the starting lineup until Powell replaced McGee)
Bullock 44% TS.......-13 (2nd worst)
DFS 53.6% TS........-11.8 (4th worst)
Powell 68% TS........+8.1 (Powell has been absolutely better than McGee in the starting unit. But if a team is forced to start Powell then you know it's bad.)

Green 78% TS ..... +13.7
Bertans 72% TS ....+46 ( Only 3 games played so this number will go down drastically. )
Wood 66% TS .......+9
THJ 48% TS .........+5 (It's also an example why we can't purely take On/Off numbers seriously and we have to look at other aspects aswell such as lineups, which i will go into details below)
Maxi 50.6% TS......-4

When we go further into details regarding pure LINEUP COMBINATIONS, we see that 2 things stand out. With lineups that produce BEST points relative to the opponent we see that Green and Wood are in ALL of those lineups. Problem is, these lineups also feature Bullock, which we can see that he's also in all NEGATIVE lineups along with THJ and DFS. These positive lineups are being absolutely carried by PLUS guys while being dragged down by NEGATIVE guys. How can we tell that? Because you can compare other advance stats+shooting. I won't go into all tiny details because this could get 3 pages long lol.

But if we then combine all those metrics (shooting, passing, defense, even eye test if you want...) We can easily figure out that it is clear as a day why some starters have such horrible On/Off metrics.

At the end of the day, why are Mavs 9-7 right now?


Because Kidd is not playing important guys together, simple as that. Sure Luka needs to take some blame for those losses but i'm honestly not going to go into details about a guy who is producing MVP season so far.

Wood 24.6 MPG ( Even 25mpg for him is low, now he's fallen below that benchmark)
Green 19 MPG ( Can't even crack 20mpg even though he's having MUCH MUCH better shooting and defensive season than THJ and Bullock and even DFS)
Bertans 7 MPG (Clearly the best spacer Mavs have. Sure his defense is below average but at least he can do stuff THJ, Bullock can not).

THJ 24.5 MPG (In my opinion, that's 5-10mpg more than he should be getting at this point)
Bullock 29 MPG (Same opinion as for THJ)

The biggest question mark so far for me are Powell, Maxi and McGee.

Powell can be good but he was dominated by freaking DAJ. McGee again in some limited opposing matchups can be good and he was good but he doesn't give any effort to play defense and gets exploited a lot. Maxi has been hit and a miss so far. His defense is there sometimes but offense tanked a lot, so he is also basically more or less useless in most games.


Mavs simply have too many people who are only good against a favorable opponent and then you have a suspect coach who simply can't tie everything together and can't figure out who should be on the floor in the last 5-8 minutes of the game.

9-7 that could soon turn into 9-12.

At this point, I would try trading Bullock and starting Green. The defense would take a hit, but probably not as big of a hit as people would think. I don’t know what it is about Dallas, but players forget how to shoot when they get here and it’s not like they’re not getting good looks. This reminds me so much of Lebron’s first go around with the Cavs that it is frightening.

Also, passing on Dragic looks absolutely stupid at this point. He would have been the only wing on the team besides Dinwiddie who drives to the basket. Bullock, DFS, Bertans, and THJ are all purely jump shooters. That’s the only thing they do is shoot jumpers.

[41Dirk41]

Bullock has 0 trade value...Maybe for a SRP or a bad contract. He is a journeyman.

I agree for the second part, it was about 2years that i said we are the new first LeBron's Cavs.
And everybody know how it ended.

[XTraderXL]

So whag should luka have done? Wait for the clock to run out? It was 3 sec on clock at the inbound, got it like 1-2m from half line. Is there any chance he could have done anything else then get as close as he could and shoot it?

Sure, considering how green and bertans shot the ball they could have used luka as decoy and inbounded to them, but when u got luka and his history u want him to take that shot

He was 0/3 this season on last second shots. He is now 0/4. I knew he is going to shoot a three and probably miss again. Everybody knew it, he never does anything else. You dont even double him because its easier to defend one on one when you know exactly what a player will do and has a 25% 3pt% for the season and is at 0% in these situations.

[XTraderXL]

On team Wood will be traded, but that doesn't mean you don't do whats best for the team which is try to win.

Sent from my SM-G960U using RealGM mobile app

Or maybe there's another mastermind plan behind it. Not play him much until he signs an extension, being afraid of repeating Brunson situation. I was afraid before the season but all this is exceeding my fears.

Kidd/Cuban and mastermind should never be used in the same sentence

[Apz]

So whag should luka have done? Wait for the clock to run out? It was 3 sec on clock at the inbound, got it like 1-2m from half line. Is there any chance he could have done anything else then get as close as he could and shoot it?

Sure, considering how green and bertans shot the ball they could have used luka as decoy and inbounded to them, but when u got luka and his history u want him to take that shot

He was 0/3 this season on last second shots. He is now 0/4. I knew he is going to shoot a three and probably miss again. Everybody knew it, he never does anything else. You dont even double him because its easier to defend one on one when you know exactly what a player will do and has a 25% 3pt% for the season and is at 0% in these situations.

Then tell us what should have been done. You must have a masterplan that had a higher chance to succeed? Should DFS or Bullock that hit 1 3 each take the shot? However u plan it, it would be 1 vs 1, aka not an open shot

[Archx]

Then tell us what should have been done. You must have a masterplan that had a higher chance to succeed? Should DFS or Bullock that hit 1 3 each take the shot? However u plan it, it would be 1 vs 1, aka not an open shot

For the life of me i can't understand why the 2 best shooters of that game were not involved in the last shot. Green set the screen then he was automatically taken away from play. Bertans had to free himself up which is easier said than done. DFS inbounded the ball and Bullock stood there in the corner squeezed among 2 or 3 defenders.

It was a horrible inbound play from the beginning. DFS should have set the screen for Doncic and Bullock should have been used as a decoy to open up Bertans or Green.

Green to that moment was shooting 6-7 (he was 6-6 before Kidd took him out and cooled him off). Bertans was 4-5 from range.

At the end when Luka had to ran so far out to free himself up, two Denver defenders were on him. DFS had no clue what to do with himself and didn't even demanded the ball back even though Bones would have contested his shoot right away.

Just lazy and poor execution.

[Mavrelous]

Before the season started, I had 0 concern about the playoff, I though this team is better than last year's team for the PO, Wood>Brunson come PO time, and McGee energetic 10 MPG instead of Powell will be better, and my main concern was the RS, I still think the current personnel should be able to finish top 6 in RS, and kill in the PO, but I lost all trust in Kidd, he has no idea what he's doing, to right this ship Mavs must bring offensive coach next to Kidd, this isn't working, there is no offense, he's killing the potential of VERY talented players like Wood.
Mavs started with absolutely amazing offensive efficiency, but watching the game, it was all Luka, and once his driving lanes are closed and/or he has a bad day, everything falls apart.

[Absinthe]

Why do Bullock and DFS never cut to the basket? One of those two guys should always be a decoy and the other one should be cutting to the basket. This team needs a motion offense but instead we have a team that essentially stands around.

[41Dirk41]

Why do Bullock and DFS never cut to the basket? One of those two guys should always be a decoy and the other one should be cutting to the basket. This team needs a motion offense but instead we have a team that essentially stands around.

They can't dribble, every time they try it's a TO. Green is miles ahead in this fundamental.

And about the last possession, i don't think Kidd said nothing to players. The scheme was ball to Luka.
The others were puppets.

[Maverick41]

Why do Bullock and DFS never cut to the basket? One of those two guys should always be a decoy and the other one should be cutting to the basket. This team needs a motion offense but instead we have a team that essentially stands around.

DFS does cut from time to time. Bullock you don't want to ever cut. He can't dribble and he might be the worst finisher in the paint in the NBA. I have more confidence in him hitting a heavily contested 3 then I do him hitting a semi contested layup.

[Maverick41]

And about the last possession, i don't think Kidd said nothing to players. The scheme was ball to Luka.
The others were puppets.

Pretty sure this is how it played out:

Kidd: "Alright guys last possession. You know what to do, just give the ball to Luka and let him figure it out just like we do every possession.....(silence for 10 seconds)......so what's everyone doing after the game?"

[Mavrelous]

Among other things, I've made my peace with Luka's constant whining, he's not going to change, he's young, and he's a hot head, it's his passion, but if he wants to belong to the conversation with the elite, not going back on defense to argue or to flop by laying on the ground MUST stop, not just for the bad spot he puts the team in, but also for the negativity and frustration it brings with it on the whole team.

[Maverick41]

Among other things, I've made my peace with Luka's constant whining, he's not going to change, he's young, and he's a hot head, it's his passion, but if he wants to belong to the conversation with the elite, not going back on defense to argue or to flop by laying on the ground MUST stop, not just for the bad spot he puts the team in, but also for the negativity and frustration it brings with it on the whole team.

Exactly. Luka is awesome and all but staying on the floor to complain and not getting back on defense at all is inexcusable. I'd be fine if it happened once every 5 games or so but this happens literally every game and often multiple times in a game. You just can't do that, particularly when you're the best player and leader of the team.

[XTraderXL]

So whag should luka have done? Wait for the clock to run out? It was 3 sec on clock at the inbound, got it like 1-2m from half line. Is there any chance he could have done anything else then get as close as he could and shoot it?

Sure, considering how green and bertans shot the ball they could have used luka as decoy and inbounded to them, but when u got luka and his history u want him to take that shot

He was 0/3 this season on last second shots. He is now 0/4. I knew he is going to shoot a three and probably miss again. Everybody knew it, he never does anything else. You dont even double him because its easier to defend one on one when you know exactly what a player will do and has a 25% 3pt% for the season and is at 0% in these situations.

Then tell us what should have been done. You must have a masterplan that had a higher chance to succeed? Should DFS or Bullock that hit 1 3 each take the shot? However u plan it, it would be 1 vs 1, aka not an open shot

He is 0/4 this season in these situations, he took a three every single time. Anything is better than 0%.

[UglyBugBall]

It's clear as day at this point that Wood is not being treated fairly by Kidd. Does he make mistakes on defense from time to time? Sure but so does everyone else on the team. I don't see Powell being taken out for the millions of times he forgets to box out for defensive rebounds. Or THJ when he chucks like crazy and is an even worse defender then Wood. Or Spencer who gets lost on rotations often. Or Luka who is the most prone in the NBA to not getting back on defense and not rotating whenever he's tired. The second Wood makes a mistake, Kidd pulls him and puts him on timeout like he's a child. At this point, it's no longer coaching. It's punishment.

Wood is in contract year though. Kidd needs to keep his minutes and role reduced so that they can resign him on a favourable contract. We don't want him balling out too hard and then he walks like Brunson did, or we have to overpay him and hamstring our future. Best thing we can do is keep him at 25-30mpg and hesitant of his role. If things break right well have him locked up for 4-5 years on a much better deal than if just gave him the green light and let him impress the league and create a bidding war. They've learned from the Brunson situation. You can't let guys have career years on their contract year. They want to suppress Wood this year and let him ball out next season. We could save 20-30M if we keep him a sweet zone production wise.