5 hours ago
(6 hours ago)Smitty Wrote: Someone on Discord asked who the Mavs top 5 players were. Not who the starters should be, but best 5 players right now in '26-'27.
To me it's: Flagg, Kyrie, Lively, PJW, Naji
The next 5, to make up some sort of 'top 10': Gafford, Max, Aldama, Morez, Risacher
Then the 'deep bench' guys: Sasser, Sergio, Cisse, Tarik, Martin
I'm assuming Klay is not here.
If I were to come up with some kind of total minutes played this season, it'd look something like this:
Kyrie 1920 (60 x 32)
Max 1800 (75 x 24)
Flagg 2520 (70 x 36)
PJW 1560 (65 x 24)
Lively 900 (50 x 18)
Naji 1800 (75 x 24)
Risacher 1800 (75 x 24)
Aldama 1300 (65 x 20)
Morez 1680 (70 x 24)
Gafford 1300 (65 x 20)
Sasser 750 (50 x 15)
Sergio 750 (50 x 15)
Cisse 750 (50 x 15)
Tarik 600 (40 x 15)
Martin 450 (30 x 15)
It's not exact of course. Just a WAG on how it could play out...
My biggest disagreements would be 1) that’s a lot of minutes for Max and Risacher compared to others. I think Mavs fans would be over the moon if they did play that much and it actually helped the Mavs win. It would bode quite well for the team’s future and the development work they did with those two.
2) To me, if Morez only played that much, it would be a slightly disappointing year from him, especially in continuing to play for and be developed by his coach from last year. The two things that make me nervous that you might be right are a) growing pains in foul reduction, and b) readiness to take big center minutes. Adjacently, I do hope they move Gaff at the trade deadline if Morez shows any center readiness whatsoever.
3) If Sergio’s minutes end up being that low, iit will say very disappointing things about his readiness and production, and may have a lot to do with handling and shooting woes. I think he’s a huge part of what they want to do and accomplish moving forward.
4) I would also be scratching my head a bit if Sasser got that low of minutes given that he probably enters the gym as the Mavs’ best POA defender.
5) Tarik getting that low of minutes would probably indicate defensive uselessness, and I hope that’s not the case.