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Can they make the finals again?
They added Klay as well.

I still think Klay is largely washed as a difference maker. But if teams are going to give him that many wide open looks, he's still going to make them pay. Did the Spurs not realize who that was lol?

He needs to work on his style if he wants to join the greats. Boston's defense easily destroyed Dallas. Luka won't get to play with a Kyrie like robin his entire career, he needs to deliver.

Klay's a big addition, let's see if Dallas can get the chip.

Texas Chuck wrote:I still think Klay is largely washed as a difference maker. But if teams are going to give him that many wide open looks, he's still going to make them pay. Did the Spurs not realize who that was lol?

The Spurs are crap.

This isn't news, I think. They were 26th on O and, even with Wemby, 22nd on D. They aren't competent. It shouldn't be surprising that they remain so. There haven't been THAT many changes, even with Paul.

It's just now dawning on me how weird I'm gonna feel if Klay wins a ring in Dallas

tsherkin wrote:The Spurs are crap.

They have the assests to get Trae Young don't they? If so they need to go all In for Young, I want Young on the Lakers but not happening.
If Lakers can't get him, then I want Spurs to.

Asa for the thread

Knicks/Dallas finals

SlimShady83 wrote:

tsherkin wrote:The Spurs are crap.

They have the assests to get Trae Young don't they? If so they need to go all In for Young, I want Young on the Lakers but not happening.

It hasn't happened yet. We'll see, I guess. I dunno what assets Atlanta would want from San Antonio which aren't Wemby, though. They don't have anyone interesting otherwise.

tsherkin wrote:

SlimShady83 wrote:

tsherkin wrote:The Spurs are crap.

They have the assests to get Trae Young don't they? If so they need to go all In for Young, I want Young on the Lakers but not happening.

It hasn't happened yet. We'll see, I guess. I dunno what assets Atlanta would want from San Antonio which aren't Wemby, though. They don't have anyone interesting otherwise.

They have a bunch of draft picks. In a world where they deal Trae, they'd likely be looking for futures anyway.

Spurs should not target Trae though. Or at least not until they have some perimeter defense around Wemby. I'm all for being aggressive even when your best players are really young, but Wemby isn't ready yet.

Texas Chuck wrote:

tsherkin wrote:

SlimShady83 wrote:
They have the assests to get Trae Young don't they? If so they need to go all In for Young, I want Young on the Lakers but not happening.

It hasn't happened yet. We'll see, I guess. I dunno what assets Atlanta would want from San Antonio which aren't Wemby, though. They don't have anyone interesting otherwise.

They have a bunch of draft picks. In a world where they deal Trae, they'd likely be looking for futures anyway.

Spurs should not target Trae though. Or at least not until they have some perimeter defense around Wemby. I'm all for being aggressive even when your best players are really young, but Wemby isn't ready yet.

That makes sense, yeah.

Haven't seen much of Dallas so far. How does Klay's defense look so far? Thought this would go really bad but at least Klay seems to be shooting well. I still think it won't be a sustainable perimeter rotation with Doncic, Kyrie and Klay... bu time will tell.

Joao Saraiva wrote:Haven't seen much of Dallas so far. How does Klay's defense look so far? Thought this would go really bad but at least Klay seems to be shooting well. I still think it won't be a sustainable perimeter rotation with Doncic, Kyrie and Klay... bu time will tell.

On paper it doesn't work. But then again it shouldn't have worked last year with THJ in there instead of Klay. But come playoff time we saw that Kyrie and Luka could hold up (mostly, Luka got targeted successfully some) defensively. In the end they defended even Boston plenty well--the issue ended up being their offense.

I think Dallas will be fine defensively. And through 3 games, Klay is getting ridiculously open looks. And if he gets this high a percentage of his shots open/wide open, he's going to make 300+ threes this year.

I think what gets lost is Luka is big. And so you can protect him some defensively guarding the other team's PF who stands in the corner. He rebounds really well for a guard. And while his on ball defense in space is a real weakness, he's good off ball. He's not a good defender, but he does enough to work with. And Kyrie has the issue of being small, but he isn't Trae or Spida and just doesn't care about defense. He competes.

Not enough data yet on Klay. But for now he isn't getting abused. He's not the lockdown guy the Warriors asked him to be for years, but as long as he can't be hunted, his offense should more than offset any defensive slowdowns.

But what really matters for Dallas is if one of the unknowns can step up and replace what Derrick Jones gave them. Can Marshall or Grimes (or Prosper?) step up and take 25 minutes a night of hardnose defense with enough shotmaking to stay on the court? So far that hasn't happened.

I think this team can get back to the finals. Nuggets are cooked. I don't believe in the wolves. Didn't believe in them last year, don't believe in them now. Feels like Ant is being force-fed to us a bit prematurely. he's at least two tiers worse than Luka as a player.

What's kind of miraculous about the mavs is that, for all the concerns about their defensive capabilities, their defense literally got them to the finals last year. Luka was injured a lot through the end of OKC series at least. Might have been hampered even after. They didn't have another plus playmaker in the playoffs outside of Luka and Kyrie. If Klay can be a consistent 17-19 ppg on solid 57-59 TS%, I think that opens things up a lot. That keeps PJ Washington as a solid 4th option rather than aver under qualified third option. Puts less responsibility on lively, who can still get to 10-12 ppg and be a defensive menace. It adds more spacing. It just frees everything up and puts less strain on everyone. To beat the Celtics though, I don't think they have enough, especially if Kyrie keeps being kind of mentally weak against them. They have the setup of a solid contender (top 5 player, top 20 player, strong defensive player, Klay) but the Celtics are just so deep its incredible.