MAVS NEWS:

[DallasMaverick]

I go back and forth on what will happen, too. Not on what I think should happen though. 

Even when I try, I can't see a good reason not to start AD/PJW/Flagg as your front court on opening night. I don't expect that to happen, but I do expect that group to close together most games (if PJW is here and extended, of course). 

...and then I remember that Kidd was on that 2020 Lakers staff, and that Harrison was obviously a huge fan of that team. That worries me. 

But, bouncing back to the other side again, as much (too much) as was made back then of the cheap Howard/McGee tandem (hmm...McGee, interesting) and their contributions, I think it's interesting to note that during that season, with those guys both in the rotation and both Kidd and Vogel on the staff, Davis played about 40% of his minutes at center. In the ensuing years, that percentage has climbed drastically, to the point where that's almost exclusively where he was playing before the Luka trade. What is notable about the 2020 Lakers playoff run is that Howard/McGee continued to play some minutes in the playoffs. However, Davis was younger/quicker then, and they had LeBron freaking James at the very end of his prime, along with quite a few uber-effective perimeter defenders. 

I like how insulated the team is against any front court injury. I do. I just wish the starting back court wasn't so wanting, and I worry that having 5 of your top 9 (depending on how you view Flagg) best players be either 5's or 4's might influence the team to be played in such a way that the the results are worse than they might otherwise have been.

Kidd has shown the willingness to tinker with lineups a lot, particularly early in the season, at the expense of wins. I fully expect the same this year, and he’s got a lot of quality parts to tinker with. Even without injuries, I expect lots of permutations.

So at some point, we’ll have a large enough sample size to actually measure the effectiveness of AD with Gafford or Lively or alone.

It may be interesting to theorize, but we don’t really need to decide all that now.

If things are just flat not working, I’d expect some movement near the trade deadline.