Trade & FA 2024-25:

[KillerLeft]

Just looked at Grant's stats, better three point percentage than I thought.  But wow, those rebounding numbers are awful for a PF.  Why is he such a poor rebounder? 3.5 rebounds last year in 33 minutes per game?

He is a poor rebounder because:

He plays above the break with the ball in his hands on offense (imagine Luka’s role, except for only about 60-70% of the time, with others initiating the rest of the time). When he’s not the ball handler, he hangs out on the wing, kind of like Hardaway’s role. He has been playing a COMPLETELY different role than the Dallas forwards on offense (then again, that was true of PJ before he got here, too).

Defensively, he is so quick and agile for his size that he almost exclusively guards DOWN in size, meaning he is usually at the perimeter on the defensive end, nowhere near the paint. This is similar to the Jones role from this season. Notice that Jones was not that great of a rebounder.

I don’t know that Grant would magically become a better rebounder here, but I do know that he can play the Jones role on defense and a variety of roles on offense. If he’s here WITH Jones, I believe he is also more than capable of playing Washington’s defensive role, too. I think that would probably result in better rebounding from Grant, but I’m not sure. What I am sure about is that rim protection would get much better in that eventuality. Grant is a tremendous shot blocker when he is helping in the paint.

People who have been begging for more ball-handling should welcome the idea of Grant. He’s so good at it he has been given the chance by two teams now to be the main offensive initiator. He was not good enough at it for those teams to win, but next to Luka and Kyrie, and constantly matched up against dudes his size or bigger (not what he has been facing as his team’s focal point), I think he’s going to WOW some of you guys on offense. 

Honestly, I would not be concerned about the rebounding, because that is sort of role dependent. When it comes to rebounding, it’s not about the players so much as it is about where the player is on the court when shots go up. I also wouldn’t be very concerned about him on defense, because he clearly has the athletic ability and defensive IQ to do, defensively, what Jones did this year (maybe not quiiiiiite as well) AND/OR what PJ did this year (probably even better). I promise that if you were somehow able to put the three of them into the same rotation, your defense would be STELLAR. Hell, you could literally play them all at the same time if you needed to. 

If I were FORCED to make an argument against bringing Grant in, it would be this: 

1) I am not sure he is going to be all that interested in being third fiddle behind two huge stars. He might be happier losing and being on ball. I sure hope not.

2) even if he’s OK with the hierarchy of point number one and understands that his playmaking will be tertiary, I’m not sure he’s going to be super thrilled about what that means, which is that here he will have to be a SCREENER to be involved in the offense. This is probably my biggest fear with the target, because this is a level of physicality on the offensive end that he hasn’t had to endure for a few years now. He’d have to want to do it. But if he did, he would be amazing. AMAZING.

3) he is a little old for the timeline of everyone on this team except for Kleber and Kyrie Irving. Doesn’t bother me, because at least he is not LeBron or Paul George age. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s younger than Irving. 

4) His contract is CRAZY for a team’s third best player. That’s because since he left Denver, he has never been a team’s third best player. He has always been first or second since then. This is the closest thing to a “third star” you are going to get here in Dallas, given the assets on hand. That’s not a mission I am particularly interested in accomplishing, personally - I like Grant here for fit reasons. But, for those who are hoping to add offensive talent to the mix, Grant is the best, most to gettable delivery system for that I’ve seen mentioned here so far.