2021-2022 ROSTER TALK: [ARCHIVED]

[ItsGoTime]

I think that is the main philosophical question. Does Mavs with the Doncic lead offense (and Brunson as second scorer) really need and can really integrate another "star". With a star being a player that demands the ball. Or is it more that we need high level role players, that are not really stars. Doncic and four guys that are treated more or less equally as the numbers of offensive opportunities they get. For example - are JRue and Middleton stars? Would they flourish as first options on any team? I don't think so. Was Jrue worth all those picks for Milwaukee? Absolutely.

In this light Grant certainly fits the description of a high end role player and fills the one crucial need the team has - big wing. So if one believes he is the one missing piece to lift this team to true contender status, I don't really care if his price is 2 FRP (without any other important rotation player going out). I go for it and try to win it all. Of course I can't judge about Grant wanting to be featured. Featured Grant does not fit on a contender - high level role player Grant fits a lot.

Perhaps if we look another way. I think line-up of Luka-Brunson-DFS-Bullock-Wood is not good enough to win it all, whoever we put on the bench behind them. So one of them needs to be replaced with another player coming in. Assuming Wood works out decently, our key pieces for next couple of years are Luka, Brunson, DFS and Wood, while Bullock can work perfectly from bench with Maxi, Powell and 6th man (lets say this is SD). Even if Brunson is the one going out, the big wing remains the true need for optimal roster construction, imho. So which player in the league would fit in that fourth roster spot perfectly, if there are no limitations? Everything else would require a much bigger overhaul of the roster.

My list of ideal 5th guy (big wing) to our core:
- Giannis
- Durant
- Kawhi
- LeBron
- Tatum
- JJJ
- Siakam
- S.Barnes
- Grant
- Hunter
- Aaron Gordon
- Harris
- Barnes
- Draymond Green
- RoCo
- Morris

So, how realistic it is we ever get one of the guys that are better than Grant?

Ya, this is a pretty good way to look at it. I think in terms of on court impact, Luka/JB vs Luka/SD in a starting role (if JB decides to go elsewhere, let’s not lose sight of JB HAS to sign here even if he is not “the guy”), the drop off is really not that big if there is one at all. The drop off comes when you add Dragic instead of SD on the bench as the 3rd guy. How big of a drop off though? Sometimes big, other times none at all, I would contend. We also should get a vet min/development 4th guy in that scenario, we still have the roster spots to do that.


In that sense, does Toppin enter your radar on that list somewhere? Young promising bigger body wing. Might be able to man the 5 spot in a “smallball” set. I could see that as a possibility where we need a 3rd team to help facilitate. Toppin and our 23 back is a decent snt return, maybe we can extract more?