(04-27-2021, 02:17 PM)F Gump Wrote: If that was as easy as simply snapping your fingers and doing it, that would be great, with one disclaimer below.

But if you did this list, I'd much rather keep Powell than WCS, because of the relative salary cost. WCS is paid about what a backup center should make, and Powell is paid way more. Values are about the same - neither should be a starter. The extra money to spend would also be quite useful elsewhere, particularly in paying for cost over-runs that I think would result from the list and prices you have.

One disclaimer-  I would much prefer "3rd star" be the acquisition, over 3 "helpful role players," if that was an available alternative.

(04-27-2021, 01:37 PM)StepBackJay Wrote: I feel like Lowry is going to Miami, Ball will go to NY or maybe Charlotte to play with his brother? Schroder could go to NY or stay in LA. I don't see Mavs interested in Schroder.

I like Graham as an idea. I also like Goran Dragic as an idea. Dragic is a good fit and won't cost a lot (I think 10 mil?). He is going to miss a good number of games so you will have to do some injury management stuff with him.

In my view you could do Holmes at like 13, Dragic 10, Graham 10 (give or take).

Top 9 guys would be:
Luka/Dragic
Graham/Brunson
DFS
Holmes/Powell
KP/Maxi

(04-27-2021, 02:40 PM)mvossman Wrote: I don't think you are going to be able to get all three with our cap space.  I think Graham is going to cost more than 10.  He would be my preference over Dragic due to his defense.  A Homes/Graham off season seems doable and a big win in my opinion.  If we can't get any of the two-way guys, then Dragic would be a reasonable back-up plan.  With the remaining money maybe you go after a McDermmot to replace THJ.  A Holmes/Dragic/McDermmot would still be a successful off season, but my top priority would be to get a quality two-way SG that can do some play making.

(04-27-2021, 02:17 PM)F Gump Wrote: If that was as easy as simply snapping your fingers and doing it, that would be great, with one disclaimer below.

But if you did this list, I'd much rather keep Powell than WCS, because of the relative salary cost. WCS is paid about what a backup center should make, and Powell is paid way more. Values are about the same - neither should be a starter. The extra money to spend would also be quite useful elsewhere, particularly in paying for cost over-runs that I think would result from the list and prices you have.

One disclaimer-  I would much prefer "3rd star" be the acquisition, over 3 "helpful role players," if that was an available alternative.

(04-27-2021, 09:41 AM)mvossman Wrote: I did not see your prior post, but the main point of my argument is that because defense is so hard to capture in a stat, you need a very large sample size.  I would not expect a defensive stat to do a very good job in the relatively small sample that we have this year (that's why I went over 3 years).

I mean lets look at some of the context of this year.  Powell started the first 9 games and was terrible, both offensively and defensively.  He clearly was not ready to play anywhere near his prior level.  Yet the defensive rating of the team looked good.  Why is that?  Likely because opponent 3 percentage was abnormally low (another stat that needs a big sample to be of any value).  Then he played sparingly vs bench units as he tried to get back to his old self, only recently starting to get decent minutes.  He is still averaging less than 15 a game.

Maxi, has not looked the same since Covid.  Not sure if this is going to be a problem for the rest of the season.  He seemed to recover after the all star break but has really struggled the last several games he has played in (don't know if that is injury related).

The point is this is not really a good season to evaluate these guys as they have both been dealing with unique circumstances.  The question is who is the better defender in general, and for that I think it would be more useful to look at a multi year sample.

Also, not all stats are the same.  Some are more useful than others.  I'm a particular fan of RPM because it takes about as much context in account as you can.  There are others that I found useful, not as an overall stat, but something to contribute (like Raptor or the stat someone posted earlier showing the quality of offensive opponent).  I would be curious to see some of those stats over the last couple of years instead of just this year.

(04-27-2021, 03:55 PM)DanSchwartzgan Wrote: I think you make some good contextual points.  Teams weren’t shooting as well overall in the early season.  But, Dallas was ranked 4th defensively in that environment and Powell, Maxi and WCS were all posting very similar D-Ratings (until KP came back).  You can’t write off good individual numbers to league-wide poor shooting when the team was beating 83% of its peers who were benefiting from the same issue.  

Fast forward to March and April.  Yeah, Maxi is struggling.  But Powell is again thriving and outperforming the team as the team’s numbers improve.  Is it small sample size noise, or a player who if finally healthy hustling his butt off.  Or, is it something else.  Whatever the reason, the data is the data.  My assertion wasn’t that Powell is always the better defender.  It was Powell is the better defender this year.  Your use of 3 year data to prove DRPM’s superiority doesn’t mean much because 3 years ago Maxi was clearly the better defender...and it wasn’t close.  This is confirmation bias.  You seem to be a good stats person.  I imagine you know the danger of trying to create a narrative to make the data conform to your view as much as anyone.  It feels to me that you are doing just that to show your one data point is somehow better than the 8 or 9 that say something different (this year).  BTW, half of those data points are just variants of RPM designed to fix issues other stat geeks have found (believe exist) with RPM.

Interesting question regarding D-Raptor.  In 18/19 DP-MK were 43rd/93rd percentile.  In 19/20 it was 68th/74th.  This season it is 93rd/74th.  BBall Index has a player comparison functionality that is kind of cool, but I think you have to subscribe to at least some of their stuff.

(04-27-2021, 02:33 PM)michaeltex Wrote: No doubt. But the FA class looks more like "helpful role players" than "3rd star" this summer. 

If you keep Powell, then you at least have his salary for matching if/when the opportunity comes to trade for someone closer to the 3rd star classification. I keep thinking about all the in-season movement this year. Hardin, Westbrook, Holliday, Aaron Gordon, to name a few. There will be opportunities next year as well that DAL could take advantage of better than this season with tradeable assets rather than dry powder.

Some of the KP trades would put DAL back to looking for the 2nd star all over again.

(04-27-2021, 04:29 PM)StepBackJay Wrote: I am with you on this. I don't doubt Mavs will try for a big move but they will probably see that isn't going to materialize. The next best thing is trying to add assets that help now and can be traded in the future.

(04-27-2021, 04:51 PM)JamesConway Wrote: The problem though is: the Mavs have no interest in acquiring assets due to their win now approach. It’s a one way street for picks and draftees: you will exclusively see them leave/be traded away from Dallas.

Carlisle has also done a marvelous job killing any value Bey/Green/Terry had. The Mavs approach to developing assets is among the worst in the league.

Carlisle would literally prefer to go with Melli every single game instead of throwing Bey out there for even one possession of non garbage-time.

(04-27-2021, 03:55 PM)DanSchwartzgan Wrote: I think you make some good contextual points.  Teams weren’t shooting as well overall in the early season.  But, Dallas was ranked 4th defensively in that environment and Powell, Maxi and WCS were all posting very similar D-Ratings (until KP came back).  You can’t write off good individual numbers to league-wide poor shooting when the team was beating 83% of its peers who were benefiting from the same issue.  

Fast forward to March and April.  Yeah, Maxi is struggling.  But Powell is again thriving and outperforming the team as the team’s numbers improve.  Is it small sample size noise, or a player who if finally healthy hustling his butt off.  Or, is it something else.  Whatever the reason, the data is the data.  My assertion wasn’t that Powell is always the better defender.  It was Powell is the better defender this year.  Your use of 3 year data to prove DRPM’s superiority doesn’t mean much because 3 years ago Maxi was clearly the better defender...and it wasn’t close.  This is confirmation bias.  You seem to be a good stats person.  I imagine you know the danger of trying to create a narrative to make the data conform to your view as much as anyone.  It feels to me that you are doing just that to show your one data point is somehow better than the 8 or 9 that say something different (this year).  BTW, half of those data points are just variants of RPM designed to fix issues other stat geeks have found (believe exist) with RPM.

Interesting question regarding D-Raptor.  In 18/19 DP-MK were 43rd/93rd percentile.  In 19/20 it was 68th/74th.  This season it is 93rd/74th.  BBall Index has a player comparison functionality that is kind of cool, but I think you have to subscribe to at least some of their stuff.

(04-27-2021, 02:55 PM)BasketballJones41 Wrote: What’s the boards consensus on Graham? Is he a good defender or no? If yes is he good enough to be a defensive tandem with DFS?

(04-27-2021, 06:18 PM)RedFlag41 Wrote: I think you will have to overpay to get Holmes away from the Sacramento Kings. I am guessing a range of 15M to 20M a year or a sign a trade with the Kings getting some sort of assetsin return.

(04-27-2021, 07:06 PM)jesusshuttlesworth82 Wrote: Of course we discussed similar things A LOT two summers ago and we went and got freakin Delon Wright.  I'm not getting emotionally involved again until something happens.

(04-27-2021, 06:51 PM)StepBackJay Wrote: Holmes is a UFA so all you have to do is say hey want to play for this Kings dumpster fire that was so smart they passed on Luka Doncic, or the team that did draft him and will be in the playoffs every year? I don't think you have to overpay necessarily to steal him away but there will be multiple suitors. I still think 3/41 or in that neighborhood is what he will get.

(04-27-2021, 11:01 AM)StrandedOnBeauboisHill Wrote: The biggest issue with building around KP (at least for me) is that you can really only place him in that defensive anchor role or he'll get pretty exposed out on the perimeter.  The problem with that is that he's proven over the past two years that he has a lot of inefficiencies playing that role in our system.  He's still a good help side rim protector but I feel like we have enough of a sample size to see that he just isn't mobile enough to handle his drop coverage responsibilities in the pick and roll. I look at Holmes as more of a KP replacement in a world where KP gets moved for backcourt/wing help somehow (Wiggins/Pick?).  I feel strongly that you need a top 10 defense to win a championship in this league (the nets may become an exception to that rule but we'll see...) and also feel strongly that we'll always be an average to below average defensive team with KP as our anchor.  Building a top 10 offense with Luka should not be that much of a struggle so I feel like if you have the opportunity to really turn the defense around you should do so.