2021-2022 ROSTER TALK: [ARCHIVED]

[DanSchwartzgan]

Zach Harper has his Mav's offseason report out today for the Mav's.  He likes Bullock/Brown for JRich/JJ Redick as an upgrade and thinks Moses is an interesting prospect.  But otherwise, not much improvement.  He makes the point that the Mav's might not need much improvement because they were so rocked by missed games from key people:

"First and foremost, the Dallas Mavericks were hit pretty hard by unavailability. While Luka Doncic was brilliant    once again, he didn’t receive a lot of consistent help. Kristaps Porzingis missed 29 games, Maxi Kleiber missed 22, Josh Richardson missed 13 and Dorian Finney-Smith missed 12. We also saw double-digit games missed from Dwight Powell and Willie-Cauley Stein." 

"The only real consistent help Doncic received was from Jalen Brunson and Tim Hardaway Jr. being around nearly every night. With the absence of rotation guys, offensive mastermind Stephen Silas off to Houston and Seth Curry no longer helping space the floor, we saw the Mavericks’ historic offense from a season ago suffer. They were still a top-10 offense, but there’s a big difference between being a historic offense and being just pretty good when trying to overcome defensive issues."

The other thing I thought was interesting was how he classified players.  Below he calls KP/WCS/Boban and Moses our "Bigs" and Powell and Maxi our "Forwards".  He makes the point that "at some point we may need to see an improvement of talent there (at the forward spot)".  Whether you call Powell a Big and KP a Forward or the other way around, this plays into the idea that Dallas will play KP with another Big/Forward a good bit of the time.  I personally like calling KP and Maxi the same thing because both have an outside shot and Powell, Willie, Boban and Moses do not.  

But, if you look at it like Harper does, then a "Forward" is easily identifiable as a position that can most easily be upgraded without robbing Peter to pay Paul.  At the very least, we need a developmental guy there like we have with other positions in Moses, Green and Frank (I've really not seen enough from Terry to call him a "prospect" yet).  It is hard to identify that guy on a long term basis, but I'd keep an eye on T. Young in San Antonio as a TDL short term help.  The Spurs will probably sell him off to a contender at the deadline.  He's a fantastic passer and good defender.  The three point shooting is an issue, but if you presume he's taking Powell's minutes, you are replacing Picks with Passing and improved D.  Plus, it isn't like Young sucks at Screen Assists (85th percentile).  I think he'd help the D compared to Powell without hurting the O one bit (and I like Powell's impact on our offense).

Changes to Dallas' Lead Guards

LEAD GUARDS     2020-21 PLAYERS         2021-22 PLAYERS
1               Luka Doncic         Luka Doncic
2               Jalen Brunson       Jalen Brunson
3               Trey Burke          Trey Burke
4               Tyrell Terry        Tyrell Terry
5               X                   Carlik Jones

Changes to Dallas' Wings

WINGS                   2020-21 PLAYERS         2021-22 PLAYERS
1               Tim Hardaway Jr.    Tim Hardaway Jr.
2               Dorian Finney-Smith Dorian Finney-Smith
3               Josh Richardson     Reggie Bullock
4               Josh Green          Sterling Brown
5               J.J. Redick         Josh Green
6               Nate Hinton         JaQuori McLaughlin
7               Tyler Bey           X


Changes to Dallas' Forwards

FORWARDS          2020-21 PLAYERS         2021-22 PLAYERS
1               Dwight Powell       Dwight Powell
2               Maxi Kleiber        Maxi Kleiber
3               Nicolo Melli        Eugene Omoruyi
4               X                   Feron Hunt


Changes to Dallas' Bigs

BIGS                      2020-21 PLAYERS         2021-22 PLAYERS
1               Kristaps Porzingis  Kristaps Porzingis
2               Willie Cauley-Stein Willie Cauley-Stein
3               Boban Marjanovic    Boban Marjanovic
4               X                   Moses Brown