PLAYOFFS ROUND 1: #4 DAL (4-2) vs #5 UTA (2-4) |

[michaeltex]

Maxey, Bane, Bey, etc. would not have had the same opportunities here that they had on their other teams to develop the past two seasons. The Mavs rarely give a ton of minutes to rookies and inexperienced players when they have a playoff-caliber team. This has been a veteran roster, especially at the guard spots so not a lot of minutes to go around between THJ, JRich last year, Bullock, and now Dinwiddie are all going to get the bulk of the minutes at those SG/SF spots. And add Brunson, who plays SG when on the floor with Luka. 

Maxey definitely would not have been used properly here and I bet he wasn't even on the radar in 2020 since they already had Luka and Brunson as ball-dominant guards. Bane and Bey might have just ended up like Jae Crowder here in his first two years with the Mavs...which is basically similar to what they've been using Green this season.

I will add that these decisions were made under the Donnie/Carlisle regime, which didn't give a lot of sunshine to rookies not named Luka. So early career development was not a priority for the old MBT.

TBH, I had the feeling that even RC was a reluctant supporter of Luka his first season. At least until he started showing some of those OMG moments and it was obvious you couldn't deny Luka's right to playing time.