Who has the most to gain/lose during the rest of the season?

[Scott41theMavs]

Probably no right answer and a lot of choices.  Kidd, Nico, Luka, Kyrie, PJ, others all have case to make.

My choice is Josh Green though.  Josh has a golden opportunity to take the starting SF position and not look back.   This offseason it appears Dallas will look for another wing.  If feels like one way or another they are going to add a player there.   The level Green plays too may determine if that is a starter or a rotation guy.   If he doesn't grab it, they are probably looking for a starting level player.  Worse yet, Green could be used as a trade piece.   If he grabs it, he could put him in solid footing for a while here.

Last year it felt like Josh was making a jump.  He got hurt for a bit and then found himself in lower minutes.   It sort of zapped all the momentum he was building.  It is tough to make conclusions because the season was such a disaster.  Will this year be different?

Interesting perspective on Green.

If he continues to play as he was the last couple of weeks before All-Star, then he is worth his new contract, which means he would have positive trade value. The Mavs viewed him as untouchable in trade, and that looks appropriate so far. It's a completely different look to the TDL if Green goes for PJ (lose a starter to fill another starting hole). We certainly aren't potential contenders (which I believe the current team definitely is) if that happened. 

The move this summer is THJ for something. It seems readily apparent from where I'm sitting that Hardy is the THJ replacement. If the package is THJ + Green + draft capital for an upgrade to Green, great. That guy would have to be a point of attack defender who is definitely better than Green at that, while also being a superior scorer. Who fits that profile? 

Are the Mavs looking for "another wing," or "another big wing?" I presume that PJ stays regardless of anything. Several principles for me:

1) I understand that it's ridiculous to view Luka as anything other than the PG on offense, but for positional building, he is 100%, incontrovertibly an SF. He defends the lesser of the opponent's forwards/3-4 guys. Luka ideally never defends a guard. That, to me, dictates that's it's an objective misnomer to think of Green as an SF. It makes Green look far less valuable to the Mavs, present and future, than he actually is. He's a guard, and his "smaller wing" size is absolutely fine for that.

2) As long as Kyrie is around, he defends the weaker of the two guards. 

3) Those two realities dictate that whoever else is in the starting and finishing lineup with Luka, Kyrie, and Lively must include someone who can defend the point of attack. That's Green's role right now. Exum probably does it better, but isn't as reliably healthy. Is PJ boss enough on D to do that? 

4)  My overall point with all of this is that if the target is a starting wing who would presumably replace Green, either a) it's a wing so versatile that he can regularly, if not 24/7, defend PGs, or b) it's a guy who is actually substantially bigger than PJ, but they think PJ is good enough as a wing to be that guy who defends PGs all the time. While I like me some PJ, I'm pretty dubious on b).

I think the most likely thing if this were the approach would be c) that the Mavs were as colossally stupid as many of the fandom outside of this board as to believe that the Mavs are just fine defensively with a starting backcourt of Kyrie/Luka. Buying into that would be the decision not to compete on a playoff level ever for the rest of Kyrie's time here.

I know I speak in extreme language. I also know I'm right about this. Insert Boromir meme here - one does not simply build a Mavs starting/ending lineup of Kyrie/Luka/PJ/Lively with another big wing who is not expected to be able to guard PGs or dominant SG scorers and expect to win crap.

What do I hope happens? For as long as Kyrie is here (which presumably includes all of next season, unless he has one of his historical off-court implosions), I would want the Mavs to retain all of Luka (duh), Kyrie, Lively, Exum, Green, PJ, and Gafford. Maxi will presumably age out, which is fine - let OMax grow into his role. I hope THJ goes for air and draft picks. Then we could re-sign DJJ if they wanted to, or just have financial flexibility moving forward, or find a good bench level wing to replace him.

But - I'm fine with a THJ/Green/picks trade for a POA defender with superior offensive skills who is identifiable as a shooting guard and/or "small wing" who is more or less Green's size or a little bit bigger. What I'm opposed to is getting a "big wing" who can't defend guards very, very consistently.