MAVS NEWS:

[JamesConway912]

I know we've talked a lot about Naji with his fit and future price tag. Now that he's made it past the TDL, I wanted to break down what an extension could look like for him and see what others think about it.

He can get a 4-year extension, with the 1st year starting 140% above the league average salary (~$12M), with 8% max raises.

Current Contract
26-27 | Age 29: $9.4M

Max Extension
27-28 | Age 30: $16.8M
28-29 | Age 31: $18.1M
29-30 | Age 32: $19.6M
30-31 | Age 33: $21.1M

It comes out to a 4 year ~$75M deal with an average annual value of around $19M.

Thats a lot of money for a role player in his (then) late 20s on a bad team.

At some point the oncourt production & fit has to be evaluated. Marshall + Flagg have played roughly 1000 minutes next to each other this season and the results have been poor at ~ -6,5 points per 100 possessions per NBA.com 2 men lineup stats.

The team has not performed well overall which huerts all lineup stats but even if you look at all 2 men groups that have played almost 100 minutes together Flagg and Marshall are roughly in the bottom 10-15 of the Mavs’ duos.

Winning is hard in the NBA. You cant just declare anybody a building block by default and pay them accordingly. Gafford and Washington are already on big longterm deals and it’s not like the results with those two alongside Flagg have been a great positive either. (-3 and -10 per 100 possessions).

So I would be very hesitant here and at the very least evaluate the fit again next season before committing money to a third guy who might just not be what is needed next to Flagg.

Personally I would look to package Marshall with the OKC and PHX pick and see how far I can move up from #30 and grab the best guy according to my board.

And then evaluate Gafford and PJ extensively next season with a look at the TDL in mind.