Building Around Cooper: A Backward-Looking Thought Experiment

[mvossman]

I agree that building around Flagg is the singular most important "conceptual" thing in the draft and free agency. We cannot look at the talent of a player and make a decision about fit just based on solely on his stats or his play with another team.

One of the worst +/- lineups that the Mavs played last year was Flagg/Christie/Washington, and I wouldn't have guessed that at all at the beginning of last year. I don't think there's anything simple about it.

I will start with looking at +/- on a tanking team is going to be of limited value, not that that stopped me from making a similar argument that the Flagg/PJ minutes were bad based on +/-.  But if you look at the context, the story is different.  A big chunk of minutes that Flagg and PJ were with Naji (and a center) on the court.  That is spacing shit show.  Also a lot of the Flagg/PJ minutes were without a PG.  We know how bad that worked out.  I have not looked into it, but I am guessing there are similar context issues with Max as well.  Having a competent roster construction will provide a lot more valuable input into what actually works.