FA: JaVale McGee 3yrs/$17.2M to DAL | will indeed start at center

[dirkfansince1998]

Some nice posts this morning.  I don't think Powell is gone, but I also don't see 40 minutes of McGee/Powell either.  There are too many mouths to fee at the 4/5 between Wood, McGee, Maxi, Powell and some DFS minutes at the four for that to happen.  I hedged on Powell last night thinking that maybe something like this is possible which would move Maxi to the five more behind McGee and DFS to the four more when Wood is playing center as a part time lineup instead of the base lineup.  

If anyone cares to go back and look, my advocacy for bringing in another center was mostly about flexibility.  We are a really long team that rebounds well with McGee, Wood, DFS and Luka.  We are a very different beast if you remove McGee and move Wood to Center.  We won't rebound or defend as well, but boy do we have a chance to blow people away offensive.y.  We need to be able to do both well and McGee provides things in limited minutes that Powell couldn't.  I think there needs to be another true big (not DFS) besides McGee, Wood and Maxi.  Who knows if it will be Powell or someone cheaper.  Powell in this limited role will be more than adequate.

To you point about an overpay, it doesn't have to be Harris coming here.  He could go to a third team and someone else could come here.  Maybe Detroit and we end up with Burks?  Too many moving parts and reported Mav's targets still on the board to think through all the possibilities.

Agree with most of this. Just don´t think that McGee at his current age is the best solution. Especially because the Mavs desperately need to address the lack of assets on the roster.
Other problem is that basketball doesn´t allow for as many situationable subs as other sports. Flexiblity is important and will hopefully help the Mavs in certain matchups but it always comes with a trade off. In this case rim protection + rebounding instead of perimeter defense/switching + shooting.

I am not sure if McGee will be a part of the 7-8 man playoff rotation that we talked about in the last couple of weeks. Would argue that his value in the last few seasons was more about his durability in the regular season. In the playoffs he was an afterthought. Suns tried to give him a few spot minutes. Lakers made a crucial decision and benched him for the rest of their playoff run after a couple of bad games in the WCFs.

I think of him as a regular season body that can reduce the load of Woods and Kleber. But when it matters I don´t want to see him on the floor.