09-25-2020, 10:59 AM
(09-25-2020, 10:13 AM)Dundalis Wrote:(09-24-2020, 08:56 PM)fifteenth Wrote: Not a good take, imo, SBJ. HB was done here. There was no role for him. I defended him until it became obvious that his leaving was addition by subtraction. None of your scenarios are better options than what happened. He has some skill, but he's a black hole who gets lots of touches and removes the ball from a more efficient, Luka lead, flow offense. Good dude, but not a fit here. Had to go.
IMO this is irrelevant. A good GM treats players like assets or chips to be moved for better pieces and at the right time (peak value). Harrison Barnes' fit with the Mavs is far less relevant than his perceived value as a moveable asset. I agree about the valuation of Barnes as a Maverick. But I also believe due to the construction of the team, he was overutilized in a way unsuitable to his skillset. On a team with let's say two established scoring options and perhaps an established high level wing defender to be used to defend the oppositions best player, a player like Barnes who can provide spacing and solid defense can potentially maximize his effectiveness and thefore be a more useful and desirable fit and get a much better return than for example if the Mavs themselves were trying to trade him in from another team. And other teams are well aware of this, with access to much better analytics than we have.
I'd also say the current roster construction combined with the development of Luka today would result in Barnes fitting in much better with the current team. THJ is every bit the black hole Barnes is, and was hot garbage the second half of last season post trade jacking up bricks at a level of inefficiency we've never seen from Barnes, but puts up a career shooting year this season and people start singing his praises. His shooting reverts to somewhere close to the norm, which is probably more likely than not, he's ultimately just a less talented version of Barnes.
This is applicable to many players around the league. We have a generational talent, which is the hardest asset to acquire. But I think it also means we need to be more precise with roster construction. Even if you can't acquire the right fit, you need to acquire desired, moveable assets that give you the flexibility to acquire the right fit in the future. Apart from Luka and KP, we simply do not have very desirable trade pieces. Part of that was the acquisition of Luka and KP themselves, but we'd also been straight up bad at asset collection for many years, headlined by our pretty blase treatment of the draft. Barnes in the situation he was in was a far better trade piece than any non Luka and KP asset we have right now, and could have been used to bring back better future trade pieces even if a direct trade didn't return THE fit.
It might not matter after all, it certainly wasn't a disaster, and Donnie has certainly proven he can do some pretty good things with limited resources, but the best non star trade chips are talented young players with upside and draft picks, and we don't really have that at all right now unless we want to trade KP, which I woudn't be averse to depending on the return, though I know the Mavs probably would be much less likely to consider it. I think a lot of fans think about trades in terms of this guy is expendable and maybe doesn't fit well, lets trade him for a guy who will fit into our team. Rather than this guy is an asset, let's try and upgrade him to a better asset/s, that 'may' be relatively permanent fixtures in the team, but might also simply be a better asset or collection of assets, that can be used to upgrade to even better assets later on.
Exceptionally well-said. Your point about young talent is a big reason I will be pissed if the Mavs trade #18.