2021-2022 ROSTER TALK: [ARCHIVED]

[Kammrath]

The bottom line is I don’t really think Nico/Cuban/Kidd believe losing Brunson significantly hurts our ceiling next season and beyond. In a lot of ways he’s on a very similar level as a player to Dinwiddie and THJ. Capable of great performances but also prone to a dud game. These are B level players and Brunson is closer to a B level player than he is a all star. He also lacks the length that Nico/Kidd value highly next to Luka long term.

Agree with all of this for the most part. 

The Mavs were 9.4 pts worse defensively with JB in the lineup in the playoffs. I hadn't looked at those numbers until today. I was so taken with JB's offensive development in the playoffs that I failed to see how much his D was hurting the team. Luka, DFS and RB were the absolute high impact guys of the playoff run for the Mavs and the on/off numbers bear that out. 

Some other thoughts:

1) With JB out the Mavs will be able to get longer and better defensively (especially in the playoff context). 
2) JB would never be able to fully play to his strengths with Luka around. 
3) The loss of the "asset" is the big loss here, but I don't fault the Mavs for letting him walk at $27.5M/yr.
4) I think the Mavs can still make some significant strides in the roster building this summer on the trade front. 
5) I do not expect this to truly hurt the Mavs too much in the long run. 
6) CW in is going to be more impactful than JB out in my opinion, simply because of the fit alongside Luka.