https://twitter.com/IsaacLHarris/status/...4276497421
Quote:Roughly 10 minutes after hearing his name come across the television, he received a call from Mark Cuban welcoming him to the team. He also talked to Rick Carlisle and Donnie Nelson as they all expressed excitement on adding Terry to the team. Shortly after that, Terry received a private message from one of his new teammates.
“Luka [Dončić] messaged me telling me congratulations and if I need anything to hit him up and to just enjoy the moment,” Terry described to me. “It meant a lot to me to have him reach out to me that early.”
Quote:“I was sent an IQ test administered by front offices in the NBA and I did break the record for that test,” Terry said. “I didn’t really find it that particularly difficult. I just locked into the test and did what it asked. And apparently the results broke the record for it.”
Quote:According to Synergy Sports, Terry ranked in the 99th percentile in all catch-and-shoot shots last year in college. He also ranked in the 90th percentile in three-point attempts on better than a 40 percent clip. As Mavs GM, Donnie Nelson, describes it- “he can really shoot the piss out of it.”
Quote:“I think I knew I had the skillset to be an NBA player since high school, but I fell into the narrative that people said I was too small,” Terry said. “I kind of let that bother me a little bit. I wasn’t quite sure I was 100 percent going to be an NBA player, but I knew I had the skillset…it was [at the Hall of Fame Classic] that I realized I had the skillset to be an NBA player regardless of my size.”
Quote:The Mavericks interviewed him twice in the pre-draft process. The first one was early on in the process over Zoom and the next one came after his 13 combine interviews…which Dallas wasn’t part of. The Mavs called his agent directly to set up another interview and had Terry take a personality test before the draft. At that point, Terry knew Dallas was one of the teams he could end up with, but didn’t think they were one of the 3-4 teams who would take him before the Mavs’ second round pick.
Quote:“For me to come into Dallas and play with someone like Luka who is going to find me—I thrive off catch-and-shoot situations—if he finds me, I’m going to knock that shot down. With my shooting ability to space the floor for Kristaps and open lanes, I think for me, I don’t know if there could be a better fit for me in the league,” Terry said.
And fit mattered the most to him. Now, Terry gets to play alongside Luka Dončić in a system built for shooters like Terry. A system that Seth Curry thrived in and shot over 40 percent from three in last year. That role that Curry played in Dallas last year is a similar role that Terry can see himself in. “I think I could see myself in a similar role as that,” Terry said about Curry. “The ways he’s able to get his shot off and the way he’s able to maneuver on the offensive end is something I’ve been studying.”
Quote:He is also working on his shots coming off screens, despite shooting 57 percent off screens in college (94th percentile per Synergy Sports). He has also been working on improving his body. Terry told The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor before the draft that he has been on a 4,000-calorie-a-day diet and looking to go from 155 pounds to 175 pounds before the season.