07-15-2024, 01:36 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-15-2024, 01:37 PM by KillerLeft.)
(07-15-2024, 11:22 AM)mvossman Wrote: I don't think its going to be a problem in the regular season, and we can worry about the playoffs when we see how this all works out on the court.
This.
It's so easy to skip forward, mentally, to what we think this will all look like in the playoffs, but the reality is that it's going to extremely difficult (again) even to make the playoffs in the West. I think the Mavs will make it, but I also think one of the best ways they can position themselves to get back to last season's results is to make better use of the regular season, finish in the top 4 seeds and get at least one home court series, which will be even more difficult. Still, that should be their goal, and I think adding Thompson goes a long way towards making that more possible.
As you say, there are so many impossible to predict variables between now and the playoffs that the biggest problems they'll be facing at that point, whatever they are, might not even be on our radar right now.
I just keep coming back to where Thompson is in his career, how much money he took and that he wanted to play here. I think all of that can be viewed as a negative if one assumes he's going to play 30 minutes+ as a starter/finisher, but I'm not 100% sure we didn't jump the gun on that, even to start the season, and I'm almost positive his role can be adjusted if needed, and that he probably knows to expect some type of evaluation of things like that over the course of the season. When you adopt that perspective, all of a sudden those negatives become positives. There IS a way to make having Klay Thompson in this rotation a positive - I'm certain of that. We just have to trust/hope that the Mavs are up to the challenge of putting the team first and finding it. It's in everyone's best interest, including Thompson's.
As for DJJ, yes, he'll be missed. But, as President of the "you'd better re-sign DJJ or else" contingent, I honestly think this plan might be better. Marshall is a very, very good player, and we're all going to like him a lot. He might not be the defender Jones was, but he's still probably the best defender on this team right now, and he's better offensively than any of the bench players they had in their rotation during last year's playoffs. That's why they kept trying to go to Hardy and/or Hardaway, long after popular opinion would've had them write those guys off for the remainder of the season.
I think Grimes is a bit of a wildcard, but I was so down on Green that it's a risk I'm more than willing to take at this point, and if it pays off I think you potentially have a player capable of playing a much bigger role here than Green ever has. IF that happens, THAT could potentially take quite a bit of the sting out of losing DJJ.