DAL OFFSEASON: Trade & FA | Mavs "mostly done...but you never know."

[DanSchwartzgan]

So how about a guy who is very disruptive defensively, hits 40% of his 3's and is a passable play-maker (recall we don't want to take the ball out of Luka's hands completely). 

I agree he is a distruptive defender. But his shooting should be taken a bit more careful imho. First of all his sample is very small. Secondly, he shot just 33 % on threes season before on a similar sample and he didn't cut much playmaking minutes even before Rubio came to town. Both seasons he was horrible on twos. I think a contender should aim for better starters.

So, I’m going to use an even smaller sample size.  17 games.  That is the number of times he played 20 minutes or more.  One of the things I like to see when looking at young emerging players is they rise to the occasion when given more minutes.  The difference is night and day between Carter at 20+ and Carter playing less than 20 minutes.  All of his percentages go way up and the team does well, as measured by +/-when he plays more.  There are no guarantees, but that is encouraging to me.

I have no idea whether 33% the season before or 42% this season is the true reflection.  I do like that it is progress.  BTW, he makes almost half his 3’s when the game is within 5 points and .438 in games he gets 20 minutes or more.  If Luka raises all boats, what might happen if he got minutes and space?  If you look at Carter’s lineup combinations, he shows good numbers when surrounded by shooters.  I’m not envisioning him carrying an offense.  I’m envisioning him standing in the corner hitting threes (46% last season which was better than Maxi, Curry, DFS, KP and THJ) and then working hard to disrupt the opposing PG.  A 3 & D PG.  Not every team can do that, but one with Luka can...maybe should.