Off-Season 2022 - the Jalen Brunson sweepstakes

[Maverick41]

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Hopefully this fuels some motivation for the FO to do something.

[Mavrelous]

Damn, MAvs rivals were the team whose second best player is in the middle of a horrible scandal and a team with 2 unhappy prima donnas who want out, and Mavs manage to smoke them!

[41Dirk41]

Lose second best player (and our best asset)for nothing was terrible, even ESPN understand it.

But hey... "We have Frank"

[Bob8]

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Hopefully this fuels some motivation for the FO to do something.

It's even worse. If the question was, which team is the most unlikely to improve its roster in next 2 years, Mavs would be clear winner too.

[Mr B]

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?s=21&t=uh0QM706obKmv7UysY-kNw

[Darren]

Dinwiddle mentions the Mavs retained top 5 players (on the team). I wonder which 5 is actually. And technically it means Brunson is only 6th best players on team looking for vastly overpaid contract.

[Michaellam1987]

Dinwiddle mentions the Mavs retained top 5 players (on the team). I wonder which 5 is actually. And technically it means Brunson is only 6th best players on team looking for vastly overpaid contract.

This is a joke. Brunson is clearly the 2nd best player in DAL. Without him, we should see ourselves being down 0-3 to UTAH in the Luka comeback game 4 , and have good chance we will be swepted.

[Apz]

Dinwiddle mentions the Mavs retained top 5 players (on the team). I wonder which 5 is actually. And technically it means Brunson is only 6th best players on team looking for vastly overpaid contract.

This is a joke. Brunson is clearly the 2nd best player in DAL. Without him, we should see ourselves being down 0-3 to UTAH in the Luka comeback game 4 , and have good chance we will be swepted.

best==most important in this case?
Not sure I agree. While jb might be better offensively, I hold both dfs and bullock as more important players in a po setting

[Maverick41]

Dinwiddle mentions the Mavs retained top 5 players (on the team). I wonder which 5 is actually. And technically it means Brunson is only 6th best players on team looking for vastly overpaid contract.

Just to be clear, the interview being referenced here is the interview with the Locked on Mavs podcast on media day. Dinwiddie did NOT say we retained the top 5 players on the team, he said "we retained A top 5 player" in which he is clearly referencing Luka. Here's the video for reference. It's in the beginning of the video:

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[Michaellam1987]

Dinwiddle mentions the Mavs retained top 5 players (on the team). I wonder which 5 is actually. And technically it means Brunson is only 6th best players on team looking for vastly overpaid contract.

This is a joke. Brunson is clearly the 2nd best player in DAL. Without him, we should see ourselves being down 0-3 to UTAH in the Luka comeback game 4 , and have good chance we will be swepted.

best==most important in this case?
Not sure I agree. While jb might be better offensively, I hold both dfs and bullock as more important players in a po setting

I agree DFS and Bullock are both important to DAL, but I would say without Brunson, we will be likely down 0-3 before Luka come back in game 4. On the other hand, just assumimg we miss one of DFS or Bullock, IMO DAL still have a chance to just being down 1-2. Using this logic, Brunson is the better player/more important player (whatever term you would like to use).

[Bob8]

This is a joke. Brunson is clearly the 2nd best player in DAL. Without him, we should see ourselves being down 0-3 to UTAH in the Luka comeback game 4 , and have good chance we will be swepted.

best==most important in this case?
Not sure I agree. While jb might be better offensively, I hold both dfs and bullock as more important players in a po setting

I agree DFS and Bullock are both important to DAL, but I would say without Brunson, we will be likely down 0-3 before Luka come back in game 4. On the other hand, just assumimg we miss one of DFS or Bullock, IMO DAL still have a chance to just being down 1-2. Using this logic, Brunson is the better player/more important player (whatever term you would like to use).

Not only that, Mavs would have never won 8 games without Luka in RS, if they didn't have Brunson. So they might have played against Warriors in round 1.

Brunson was far the best player after Luka, what his new contract reflects too.

[Mavrelous]

W/O Luka, Mavs can't function w/o Brunson, that's absolutely true, with Luka, I don't think Brunson raises the ceiling that much, but given we know Luka, and we know he always starts slow, misses time, Brunson was not a luxury, Luka's best season was the season with long break in the middle.
P.S. with the Lonzo Ball news, I think Dragic made the right decision for him, he will have much larger role.

[Bob8]

W/O Luka, Mavs can't function w/o Brunson, that's absolutely true, with Luka, I don't think Brunson raises the ceiling that much, but given we know Luka, and we know he always starts slow, misses time, Brunson was not a luxury, Luka's best season was the season with long break in the middle.
P.S. with the Lonzo Ball news, I think Dragic made the right decision for him, he will have much larger role.

...and Dinwiddie is not iron man either.

I believe we're forgetting how important was Brunson not only in games that Luka wasn't playing, but in periods he was on the bench. He basically allowed Mavs to play similar systems, when Luka was resting. I agree that he wasn't crucial in lineups with Luka, but he was crucial in all lineups without him.

[Mavrelous]

Brunson carried the Mavs in November before Luka went down, Luka's +/- was horrible, and what primarily hurt his case for MVP, but it may have been because of Kidd's new system not necessarily Brunson himself.

I think Mavs should tinker with their offense in the non-Luka minutes, Bertans is good at moving the ball, he's good in the open court, and generally very good passer, and Bertans and THJ are very good off ball players, maybe reduce the ISO heavy offense into more motion offense, running the ISO offense with Frank/Green/Hardy is a pipe dream, but they have other options, I suspect Kidd is angling for that, this can also help reduce the load in the Luka minutes if they can rely on more motion offense, OTOH, what I saw from Kidd last year is that he has no plans to integrate Bertans because of his defemse, so I'm not sure.

[Maverick41]

Brunson carried the Mavs in November before Luka went down, Luka's +/- was horrible, and what primarily hurt his case for MVP, but it may have been because of Kidd's new system not necessarily Brunson himself.

I think Mavs should tinker with their offense in the non-Luka minutes, Bertans is good at moving the ball, he's good in the open court, and generally very good passer, and Bertans and THJ are very good off ball players, maybe reduce the ISO heavy offense into more motion offense, running the ISO offense with Frank/Green/Hardy is a pipe dream, but they have other options, I suspect Kidd is angling for that, this can also help reduce the load in the Luka minutes if they can rely on more motion offense, OTOH, what I saw from Kidd last year is that he has no plans to integrate Bertans because of his defemse, so I'm not sure.

I agree with the bolded. Kidd needs to be more creative with the offense if the intention is to play Frank/Green/Hardy/Dorsey, all of whom do not possess the handles required to run an iso-heavy offense.

To give some credit, Kidd did have some creativity in his offense particularly in the games where Luka was out. The ball moved beautifully at times and at other times, it looked hideous with THJ launching contested shots and the hilarious DFS post ups. Hopefully another year and most of the same roster coming back there's more more continuity and Kidd feels more comfortable to not have to rely on ole reliable Luka PnRs every possession.

[Bob8]

Brunson carried the Mavs in November before Luka went down, Luka's +/- was horrible, and what primarily hurt his case for MVP, but it may have been because of Kidd's new system not necessarily Brunson himself.

I think Mavs should tinker with their offense in the non-Luka minutes, Bertans is good at moving the ball, he's good in the open court, and generally very good passer, and Bertans and THJ are very good off ball players, maybe reduce the ISO heavy offense into more motion offense, running the ISO offense with Frank/Green/Hardy is a pipe dream, but they have other options, I suspect Kidd is angling for that, this can also help reduce the load in the Luka minutes if they can rely on more motion offense, OTOH, what I saw from Kidd last year is that he has no plans to integrate Bertans because of his defemse, so I'm not sure.

I agree with the bolded. Kidd needs to be more creative with the offense if the intention is to play Frank/Green/Hardy/Dorsey, all of whom do not possess the handles required to run an iso-heavy offense.

To give some credit, Kidd did have some creativity in his offense particularly in the games where Luka was out. The ball moved beautifully at times and at other times, it looked hideous with THJ launching contested shots and the hilarious DFS post ups. Hopefully another year and most of the same roster coming back there's more more continuity and Kidd feels more comfortable to not have to rely on ole reliable Luka PnRs every possession.

Dorsey has solid handles, problem is that he doesn't see anyone else, when he attacks.

[Maverick41]

Dorsey has solid handles, problem is that he doesn't see anyone else, when he attacks.

I like Dorsey and he actually gives me some hope. But the 2nd part you mentioned is a problem with all the guys in back of Luka and Spencer. All of them are predictable.

Frank - drives to pass
Josh - drives to pass (and 99% of the time tends to jump pass)
Hardy - drive to score
Dorsey - drive to score
THJ - drive to score

None of them have the ability to either do both OR not do any at all and dribble it back out if there's nothing there (the Steve Nash special). Brunson was really good at that which made him unpredictable particularly in the playoffs where he really turned up his aggressiveness.

[Bob8]

Dorsey has solid handles, problem is that he doesn't see anyone else, when he attacks.

I like Dorsey and he actually gives me some hope. But the 2nd part you mentioned is a problem with all the guys in back of Luka and Spencer. All of them are predictable.

Frank - drives to pass
Josh - drives to pass (and 99% of the time tends to jump pass)
Hardy - drive to score
Dorsey - drive to score
THJ - drive to score

None of them have the ability to either do both OR not do any at all and dribble it back out if there's nothing there (the Steve Nash special). Brunson was really good at that which made him unpredictable particularly in the playoffs where he really turned up his aggressiveness.

I'm not very optimistic about Dorsey but the difference is that Dorsey actually has handles, others haven't, he can at least create for himself and can do something without Luka. Josh and Frank might be useful for some minutes playing with Luka, but listening to Kidd, he expects from them to play point, which is absurd. The best case scenario for these 2 is that they become decent at shooting wide open 3s. Realistically they will be out of Nba very soon and with their skill set, they can't play in Euroleague either.

[Mavrelous]

I'm not very optimistic about Dorsey but the difference is that Dorsey actually has handles, others haven't, he can at least create for himself and can do something without Luka. Josh and Frank might be useful for some minutes playing with Luka, but listening to Kidd, he expects from them to play point, which is absurd. The best case scenario for these 2 is that they become decent at shooting wide open 3s. Realistically they will be out of Nba very soon and with their skill set, they can't play in Euroleague either.

Green has good handles, his problem is decision making and shot making.

[Bob8]

I'm not very optimistic about Dorsey but the difference is that Dorsey actually has handles, others haven't, he can at least create for himself and can do something without Luka. Josh and Frank might be useful for some minutes playing with Luka, but listening to Kidd, he expects from them to play point, which is absurd. The best case scenario for these 2 is that they become decent at shooting wide open 3s. Realistically they will be out of Nba very soon and with their skill set, they can't play in Euroleague either.

Green has good handles, his problem is decision making and shot making.

Good enough for Pg duty? I haven't seen him handling the ball much so I might be wrong, but road from standing in the corner to being primary ball handler is normally very long one.