FA: Klay Thompson Comes to Dallas| 3yrs/50mil

[DanSchwartzgan]

There are a few things that give me some hope. The fact that DJJ played less than 20 minutes a game during the post TDL stretch when the defense became dominate.   

I do think the Marshall/Grimes combo is better defensively than DJJ/Green combo.

As good of a defender DJJ was, he had one of the worst net ratings of rotational players on the team during the regular season. In fact it seems to be a recent trend that Mavs get rid of the players with worst net ratings (Williams, Green, THJ and DJJ).

One last crazy stat. THJ played the second most total minutes on the team. He wasn’t as bad as folks make him out to be (especially in the first half of season) but we are likely going to improve on a lot of those minutes.

I had noticed the THJ minutes before and had to do a double-take.  The team was a little worse offensively (-0.6) and a lot worse defensively (+5.3) when THJ was playing those minutes (this is 82games.com's per 48 methodology).  The interesting thing is Golden State was even worse defensively (+7.2) when Klay played.  

A couple of things in Klay's favor...people talk about the gravity of great shooting, but the team's EFG% was actually worse when THJ was on the floor by almost a percentage point.  GSW's EFG% was 1.4 percentage points better with Klay on the floor.  Also, Klay outproduced his positional opponent as measured by positional PER where THJ was worse than his direct opponent.  Post the all-star game, Klay's numbers went way up.  His scoring and efficiency improved and his +/- went from -1.5 to +3.5.  This is also the point where his minutes decreased to 28 per game and he came off the bench about half of these games.  It is hard to know if his increased effectiveness as a result of coming off the bench some or just being further away from his last injury.  His offensive game will seem somewhere similar to THJ's as both get up a shot about every two minutes.  Klay shot a bit more often off the bench than he did as a starter.

I personally think the team would be better with Klay off the bench.  It is easier to do that here than it was in GSW, but it still won't be easy to swallow.  It would be better if Klay came to that conclusion and volunteered for the bench role.  Instead, I suspect it will be one of those things where either Klay or Kyrie will sub out pretty early.  One of the reasons we probably need to start Lively is to better protect the three stars.  I can't imagine Klay starting all three years of his new contract. 

If you like numbers like this, you'll be encouraged by the Naji Marshall addition.  The Pelicans were better offensively by 2.5 points and defensively by 4.5 points when he was in the game.  As you might imagine, DJJ helped the Dallas D by 2.3 points, but you give it up on the offensive side by 2.6 points.

Green was helpful to the offense (+1.7), but the D gave up 8.6 more points per 48 when he was on the floor.  Grimes was just the opposite in NY last season.  He hurt the offense by 7.6 points and helped the D by 3.6 points.  23/24 was a down year for both Green and Grimes.  I'm not convinced Grimes will be better than Green, but we know with certainty that the money is $8mm better and without that spread, you either don't get Klay or you don't have the NT MLE to pay Marshall.