Game 22: Dallas Mavericks (6-15) vs. Denver Nuggets (14-5) | 8:00pm CST

[cow]

AD at the 5, Flagg at the 4, a real PG looks much more functional.

The obvious solution is to play five bigs together.

[F Gump]

Stein says they can convert Nembhard to a standard NBA contract in January.

Yep. G38 (Jan 8) is when they 1st have barely enough money to waive Exum and replace him with a ROS minimum.

But there is no rush. No other team can sign him away.

Right now they also lack a roster spot and money. As noted, to pay a partial year at the minimum, G 38 is when they would have enough. But no real need or benefit to do it that early, and unless you're Nico, you leave as much cushion as you can for unexpected issues that might arise later.

The roster spot can happen by waiving Exum, but they might as well see if they need his contract as filler in a trade. Can't do that if he was already waived. That's another reason to wait. 

If they're smart, they wait and do something after the TDL. For practical purposes, the target date (assuming he continues to play well) would be after his 50 games of eligibility run out. Currently, that would be for G58. If he is injured or inactive between now and then, it extends it. G 58 is late Feb after the TDL.

Probably will be a 2 year minimum. (That's the biggest and longest they could offer, unless they find a way to clear a lot of salary by the TDL.) 

FWIW this could have been (and probably was) their hope for him all along, to see if they could get him up to NBA speed and then if successful, to move him to the 15-man later in the year.

[GermanMav]

Please, for once, let them do the right thing. Take this gift sent from above, use this stretch of good and healthy AD games to raise his value and trade him SOON!
Please don't start believing that keeping AD is the way to go, don't start believing this team can go on a run and reach the playoffs.

[soog]

Nembhard was fantastic. Aside from his stats, he did so much that didn’t show up in the box score. He was constantly attacking and probing the defense. Multiple times he drove into the lane, only to keep his dribble alive and dribble back out. He had numerous quick one handed scoops while attacking the big man in the pick and roll. All of these things are what a point guard should be doing and are the things that cause a defense to breakdown and open up the game for everyone else. It’s amazing what a difference a high IQ point guard makes.

[DanSchwartzgan]

The question I have is whether it was all him, or if DEN defenders were super-sucky. 

This wasn't exactly playoff basketball on Denver's part.  Dallas had season bests in 3% at 51.6, Assists at 35 and TO's at 8.

[GermanMav]

Nembhard was fantastic. Aside from his stats, he did so much that didn’t show up in the box score. He was constantly attacking and probing the defense. Multiple times he drove into the lane, only to keep his dribble alive and dribble back out. He had numerous quick one handed scoops while attacking the big man in the pick and roll. All of these things are what a point guard should be doing and are the things that cause a defense to breakdown and open up the game for everyone else. It’s amazing what a difference a high IQ point guard makes.

Crazy how different dribbling for 20 seconds can look. He had the defence in serious trouble by just dribbling all over the place and ending the dribble with a nice outlet pass, whereas DLo for example just dribbles for the sake of it, whilst generating literaly nothing.

[ACMFFL]

   

4th in total points with 71.7% TS in clutch situations.
Sky's the limit for Coop.

[SkenfromLMF]

Did you see the timeout when Kidd approached Coop with about 5 min left in the game?? I want to say it was at the end of the drought when the score had been 110-107 for a few possessions. When Kidd started talking he pulled the neck of his pull-over up over his mouth similar to what a pitching coach does to hide his words on a mound visit.

I would bet his words were to the effect of "Coop take this thing over and quit deferring to lesser players."

[FireNicoHarrison]

Great game.

Flagg is a man. I want to go in war with that kid. He is for real.


AD trade value ∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆

[HoosierDaddyKid]

Surprising win, especially at Ball Arena. Totally unexpected, but we'll take it.

[HoosierDaddyKid]

Didn't know JJ Barea was a Nuggets assistant.

And Jason Terry is a Utah assistant. Go figure...

[Winter]

My thoughts on Nembhard was that he was a better PG than Dlo five games into the season, but that's more a reflection of Dlo than Nembhard.

FGump mentioned whether this was weak defense or is Nembhard that good. My take is Nembhard is probably the best PG on the team and he had a very good shooting night. I don't think he's going to be a player scoring 25 PPG every night, but he looks like he could average double figures pretty easily.

The more interesting observation I think is Nembhard vs Bwill. Watching Nembhard run the offense was pretty special in ways that BWill will unlikely be able to replicate. I think Nembhard's assist total would be nearly double BWills in the same number of minutes. The team just looks more coherent when he's quarterback of the offense. I'm not sure if he holds up defensively for 32 mpg, but he's going to get good minutes every night after this.

[Chicagojk]

I forgot until after the game that Aaron Gordon is on that team.   Forgot about him.   I think it was the classic case of a good team looking at a bad team and thinking they could just show up and win.  Take nothing away from the Mavs, but it is just common nature.  Especially when the other team gets off to a hot start and think they can coast.   

I think we will need to get worried every time AD falls down. I guess that is just the AD experience.  With that being said, things just look easier when you have your center scoring 32 and 13.  It can fix a lot of issues.  

I will be surprised if Nembhard shoots that well again.  His pull up jumper looks legit.  I think his three pointer will be a struggle (so far it looks great).  His brother is also a guy who shoots much lower than you would think.   He does seem to make the big ones though.   Most importantly is Ryan organizes things, creates good looks, pushes the pace and limits the turnovers.   Not much to dislike there too.  The big thing though, is players like playing with him.   They look to give him the ball off a rebound because they know he will make the right decision mostly and may give them the ball back anyway.   I am sure he will have his ups and downs, but the benefits is he will make evaluation of the rest of our players so much easier because he will get them great looks.

[Reunion Mav]

I enjoyed this game a lot and these posts. I did worry for a bit that someone could steal our two way guy but that was only a problem with a G league discovery guy.

[Winter]

Can we get a nickname for Nembhard? I have a feeling we're going to be needing one.

RE his 3-pt percentage, I believe I read where he made some correction on his shot his senior year at Gonzaga.... when he shot over 40% from the three-point line. So I'm hoping he's found that touch again. That's a feature that kept guys like Barea in the game and Barea only averaged about 35% for his career.

[loki]

Can we get a nickname for Nembhard? I have a feeling we're going to be needing one.

RE his 3-pt percentage, I believe I read where he made some correction on his shot his senior year at Gonzaga.... when he shot over 40% from the three-point line. So I'm hoping he's found that touch again. That's a feature that kept guys like Barea in the game and Barea only averaged about 35% for his career.

Nembanyama

[Winter]

Nembanyama

I will NOT be typing that!

[Dirknows]

I know we all want to trade AD to try and get the best pick possible. But reality is we’re likely to end up in the 8-12 range of the lottery. If they can commit to playing AD at the 5 is it better to keep him and hope for some lottery luck and go into next year with a healthy Kyrie/AD/Flagg trio?

[Jmaciscool]

Nembanyama

Nemby and Wemby, the bookends of the NBA height spectrum.

[Winter]

I know we all want to trade AD to try and get the best pick possible. But reality is we’re likely to end up in the 8-12 range of the lottery. If they can commit to playing AD at the 5 is it better to keep him and hope for some lottery luck and go into next year with a healthy Kyrie/AD/Flagg trio?

God, no. He hurt his finger last night. I thought he grabbed his calf once. His shooting and rebounding were excellent, but he's still slow down the court, and not much at defending the perimeter.

It would hurt to lose him in a trade, but it would hurt worse to lose him to injury. I cross my fingers every time he plays.  We pay him too much to sit on the bench with an injury.