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

[Jason Terry]

I'm all for making the team better, believe me, but I really believe a lot of people are sleeping on the internal improvements that will likely happen as a result of the first playoff experience.

I don't think it is that simple. Our players are mostly in their prime and I wouldn't expect huge development. Yes, they will be more experienced, but they will also start losing their athleticism.

Other than what you said, what playoffs also showed is, that Kleber is not a starter on a contender. You can't play him 30+ minutes, because he is very limited offensively. His more or less only skill is shooting wide open three pointers. And even that failed him in the playoffs. Teams can hide their rim protectors on him. He is just too much of an one way player. He played almost 34 mpg and scored less than 7 ppg. Defensively he was tasked to guard Kawhi, one of the toughest jobs. Denver managed to do a much better job on him. Still, he was ok imho. He is 28. Do we believe he will take his offensive game a couple of steps higher to justify large minutes on a contender? I don't. We need someone better and have Maxi in a reserve role, which means he will play somewhere around 20 min per game, perhaps less in playoffs. 

On the other side of the spectrum, playoffs also showed we have another one way player in THJ. Good offensive player of catch and shoot, but can't really create for himself. Still solid, I am satisfied with his offensive contribution. Scored over 17 ppg on decent percentages. Could be higher, but of course 6 games is a very small sample. But his bad defense makes me tough to think of him as a starter on a contender. So upgrade of a more capable 2-way player, even if he is a bit worse on offense, might bring better results. 

Out of KP and Luka, DFS was actually the only guy that showed starter level performance on both sides of the court. He played good defense, hustled and scored 10 ppg in 31 mpg. Even dished out over 3 assists per game. I think he is a capable fifth starter on a contender, if he continous to play like this.

There was one more guy playing at a starter level - Burke. Really surprised with the defensive hustle. Also very good offensively, but of course his history might suggest this is not necessarily sustainable. Would he keep the hustle if he receives a larger long term deal?

Luka and KP haven’t even started their “prime” yet

Maxi was only playing that many minutes out of necessity. The injuries are a far greater concern. Maxi needs less minutes. KP needs less minutes. So does Luka and Hardaway and Dorian. We have minutes for additions while still keeping everyone that matters

Hardaway, DFS and Maxi were our 3 best defenders once KP went down

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These specifics are all useless, because none of them are real. What I'm saying is that what they have NOW is working better than they expected it to work, and I think it would be easier for them to make things worse from here than it would for the team to get better.

Well, what they have now is also not better than first round exit. So I don't believe what they have now can improve to a real contender status. This simply means, they have to make a change. Of course there is always risk it will go wrong. But I don't think a couple of roster tweaks would really have a high risk of making this team worse. I am much more worried about injuries. 

I don't really see a lot of ideas like: lets trade THJ, Maxi, Seth, Wright and Jackson for CP3. That kind of trade is dangerous. Trading Wright for Young (for example) and putting Young in the starting line-up is not dangerous. If it doesn't work well, you bench him and start Maxi. Very simple.

How many minutes did Luka and KP even play together in the series? It’s hard to even know if we’re better than a first round exit. The injuries are the real concern going forward IMO, not the “potential”