TDL Archived: The 2nd Rnd Pick Yankee Swap

[vfromlmf]

Definitely lots of red flags on Simmons but he's been playing out of position on a broken team who just fired their coach. Despite the obvious issues, I'm interested for a number of reasons.

First, the Mavs are just an odd duck with a 6' 8" point guard. It makes roster construction challenging and leads to a cascade of roll playing specialists to fill gaps.

You want secondary creator / scorer next to Doncic, so the Mavs use Dinwiddie or THJ and both are capable, but neither is a strong on-ball defender.... So you start Bullock to guard the point of attack and rotate Green. By then your nearly out of SF minutes so have to go smallish with DFS at PF.... Wood has issues as the lone big, so you start McGee. 

That means Wood and Kleber come off the bench... but then your rotations are all hosed up to close games. 

DFS and Kleber are strong defensive closers, so Wood can't close unless you you bench Bullock or DFS ... or unless you bench your secondary creator / scorer. It can work, but it's just a mess and not ideal. It's not surprising that the "fifth closer" spot is up for grabs.

Simmons for THJ + Powell or Bertans has the potential to solve a lot of problems for both teams to be honest.