Accurately Assessing the Mavs Recent Personnel Changes

[KillerLeft]

I think there is yet another conversation that needs to be had.  These are replacement level players.  One WCF appearance it is DFS/Bullock.  Another it is PJW/DJJ.  I think there is a reason we hear rumors about 3-4 guys and, at least in the Nico era, end up with one of them.  Then we hear how close we were to getting someone else on the list.  It is because they are largely interchangeable.  We don't ask much of them because we ask so much of our Super-star and our Star (whether it is Brunson or Kyrie).

So, I'm not in on the luck thing as much as I am the interchangeability thing.  I will acknowledge there are degrees of excellence within these roles and tradeoffs in the specific skillsets these 'replacement level players' possess.  But, that is really what we are talking about here...degrees of excellence between Klay/THJ, DJJ/Naji and Grimes/Green.  

I understand this POV, but I'm not buying it. I know this pushback might miss some of the nuance you're going for here, but I think, in a general sense, this line of thinking is a trend towards minimizing the magic of a specific group of players fitting together a specific way, both on and off the court. Personally, I don't view the two WCF appearances as being equal, or even close. This one seemed way more repeatable to me (maybe I'm wrong about that). I think there really is some cause for concern that this amount of change, more with DJJ than the others, might be too much to easily capitalize on the momentum last season's team generated. I mean, we've even got Jared Dudley saying he was "the best defender on the team" from Vegas, weeks after he left. 

I agree that it's silly in a way to look at guys like DJJ as irreplaceable, but that doesn't mean I'm able to get to a place where I feel like any comparable player can be plugged in to achieve the same results. I find that logic faulty on numerous levels. I do have hope that it can work out with these, specific replacements, but that's because I like the replacements, as well as the reasoning behind targeting them (or at least what I think that reasoning must've been). In fact, I think it's almost a no-brainer that Thompson will be better than Hardaway and Grimes will be better than Green, but with DJJ and Marshall, I think the change will require a pretty major adjustment from the team to succeed. The good news is that if they can make that adjustment competently, the team might be better for it in ways we can't predict. 

But, I still think it's true that if DJJ doesn't have the season he had (along with other lucky fits) the team would've been disappointing, Luka and Kyrie or not.