2021-2022 ROSTER TALK: [ARCHIVED]

[F Gump]

I really don’t understand this thinking either. The Mavs mortgaged the future just a few years ago to trade up to draft Luka—the best draft-evaluation-based decision in the whole league over the past decade if you ask me. And then they stole Jalen in the second round. 

Since then, they’ve had one kind of not worthless pick. They used it to get one of what, 4 NBA contributors left in the 2020 draft in Josh Green? Sure, 3 guys picked after him look better today. But several more picked ahead of him look way worse. Very hard for me to expect the Mavs could or should have done better. I mean, Golden State had 3 picks that draft, including the #2 overall. And none of them contributed a minute to their playoff run. So I guess we out drafted them? Might as well blame them for performing so poorly in the lottery.

You're missing the point. It's not that the Mavs have to get every pick right - which no one does - but rather that they need to create a steady stream of cheap, bargain-priced, playable talent. A pipeline, as it were, rather than a one-off that happens here or there.

To do that, it means you have to have the scouting and analysis to identify the talent who will make it, and the internal system to develop that raw talent into ongoing supply of talent that will help supplement your higher priced players, and that eventually might even become one of those guys.

I'm really talking about the guys taken below the top 10, even outside the lottery and in the 20s or 2nd rounders, where the salaries are cheaper, and where the teams with talent will have to pick regularly.

You want to nitpick GS, but along with some misses they've made a living out of finding useful players in those parts of the draft, or young players off the street to develop. That's how they can afford MULTIPLE max players, while the Mavs cannot, because they have an ongoing pipeline of very cheap talent that is being developed and is giving them on-court production. A quick look at their team and recent picks or young free agent additions shows this --

Green - #35
Looney - #30
Poole - #28
Paschall - #41 (since traded to Utah)
Toscano-Anderson - UDFA
Moody - #14
Payton - young FA
Lee - young FA

Green turned into a big money player. Looney and Poole are producing huge results at bargain prices, and on the way to big raises. The others listed are all showing promise - perhaps one of them will be the next one who shines, while working for minimum salary.

The Mavs have had their own hits recently, finally, in DFS and JB (and perhaps Maxi fits here as well). But with DFS and JB graduating (and Maxi already having done so) from the "cheap and productive" category, they MUST continue to focus on having improve their ability to identify and develop some replacements, because they need some now. If you think they have figured it out, then pick 26 is in their pocket to grab that guy.