Building Around Cooper: A Backward-Looking Thought Experiment

[KillerLeft]

Complementary players tend to come alive when they're complementing the right guy(s) and look like JAG's when they're complementing the wrong guy(s). Almost NO ONE here wanted PJW when the Mavs traded for him. I was ecstatic and told everyone they'd love him. But now, everyone is wondering why he doesn't look as good, and I think it's pretty obvious. HE hasn't changed, the TEAM has. PJW isn't playing worse this season - there's just less of a way for him to make an impact.

To expand upon the above, I think the same goes for Gafford. He's also not playing worse this year, there's just less of a chance for him to make the impact he made when first coming here. His value was significantly contingent him being a dream of a fit with Luka on offense. He's still the same good player now he was then, but the Mavs aren't the same team. Do they want to be a pick and roll team? Should they, when building around Flagg? If they do, should he be the ball-handler or the screener, or even a mix of both? Surely, we don't want him (Flagg) to be relegated to spacing from the corner, so I'd say questions like this are and should be pretty much all that matters for a while. To me, this is made MORE sensible by the desire not to pigeonhole Flagg, not less, because the guys in question (Gafford and PJW) already are pigeonholed, basically. I think the hope of molding Flagg into something that could make a team work WITH THEM runs a high risk of limiting what he can be. 

The same goes for Marshall, only in reverse. He was a tad underwhelming as a fit with Luka, mostly because they discovered that his best role on that team was to try to do a poor man's imitation of Luka while Luka sat, only...Luka doesn't sit very much in important games. He looks GREAT this year specifically because this team is so starved for ball-handlers that he's being allowed to dominate the ball at will, basically. However, that has obviously not resulted in WINS, and as wins become more and more the focus moving forward, I believe those opportunities for Marshall will consistently diminish. In fact, I'd say the two go hand in hand. In a year, maybe two, we'll be talking about he's "fallen off," only what will really have happened is that he won't have the same freedoms in the flow of the offense - those freedoms will go to Flagg and whomever they draft this summer, probably. 

Fit matters in the NBA. It's not 2k, where you just try to amass the most overall talent possible.