MAVS NEWS:

[DanSchwartzgan]

8 more games in Dec:
@ Utah (9-15)
Vs Detroit (20-5)
@ Philadelphia (14-10)
@ New Orleans (4-22)
Vs Denver (18-6)
@ Golden State (13-13)
@ Sacramento (6-19)
@ Portland (6-19)

Only 3 teams over .500… Mavs will need to be road warriors though. A 5-3 or 6-2 finish is possible, maybe even probable.

Kyrie’s return date is soon approaching?? The Mavs have a real shot at being 16-18 before a Jan 1 return game.

Would have been impossible to imagine such a thing a few weeks ago.

Welcome to the play-in.  Currently already up to #10 in the West.

This is the AD conundrum.  You can't get value if you don't play him.  If you play him, you can't get a premium pick.

The second part of the conundrum is...if you don't trade him, should you still make moves around the edges?  Gafford?  Klay?  Something to reduce salary involving Martin/Hardy/DLo?  Those three have played 45, 30 and 60 minutes over the last six games with a good bit of that being because PJ missed four of those games.

Naji the starter began with the Clipper game.  Recall AD was out (B2B) and PJ was out.  He's started all six of this 5 of 6 run.  These six games plus one in mid-November represent the only seven games he's started.  As a starter, Naji is 17.6/4.6/3.3 and is shooting .385 from three with a TS% of .699.  The O-rating in those games is 143 and the D-rating is 116.  It feels weird to remove the shooters (Max or Klay) from the starting lineup, but if this small sample size holds, it will be hard to change him out.  

In a similarly small sample (5 games), Christie is more efficient as a sub.  Klay has also thrived as a sub.  His 3% is .383 vs .338 as a starter and his TS% as a sub is .541 vs .444.  On thing about Klay, there is a huge ORating - DRating deficit when he plays whereas Christie is a positive in this measure.  It feels a bit unfair to Klay because there have been times where he's been asked to carry the load for some bad lineups where Christie is never called upon to do that.  It is worth watching to see if overall team health helps that, but he still shows a big deficit in his 4 December games.  PJ Washington is the other player who is similarly bad at this.  Flagg was earlier in the season, but has recently turned that around.  

I go though all of that to wonder out loud if there might be a Klay (or Klay/Dlo or Klay/Powell or Klay/Hardy) trade out there even if we are trying to win with Kyrie back.  Olynyk/Carter Bryant?