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

[cow]

To me, the whole WCS thing is ultimately a philosophical dispute about 1) RC's damnable history with athletic bigs (Noel, Javale, arguably even Sammy) who, "Oh, yeah, they're the problem," and then they go to another team and show that, no, they weren't the problem; and 2) Powell. There seems to be a hell-bent hatred there for athleticism and rim protection. If Powell is considered to be a five, then there's no excuse for giving him the money and minutes he gets - he has (had) the hops to be a great rim-roll finisher and the intelligence to switch well defensively on the perimeter, but his rim protection is below non-existent. I tell you, watching Powell trying to bother, much less block, an offensive player's shot, hurt my eyes and my basketball brain. He reminded me of Keith Van Suck - it literally seemed that his hapless efforts to bother the shot resulted in a higher percentage than the shooter would have had were he wide open. Traditional fours need to provide some rim protection as well, or at least to be able to defend the paint against bully-boys. LOL Powell.

How about the modern wing-four? Is that what Powell is, a rangy, athletic guy with wing skills who can shoot from outside? LULZ no. He thinks he can shoot, and gets the green light to shoot, and has been consistently awful. He's not a traditional Millsap-type four, and he's not a modern four. Which puts us back at his being a five. Two words - hell, no. We engage in such narratives as Powell being the beneficiary of Cuban "needing to have gotten something out of the Rondo deal" or being paid for his locker room presence and community citizenship - both of which probably have some truth to them - because the alternative is to say that our FO are such terrible evaluators of winning basketball talent that they are willing to make the same mistake over (big minutes) and over (big contract) and over (a starting job? WTFF?) and over (a huge extension - why, why, WHY????) again.

And here comes a guy like WCS - so he's not a gym rat, perhaps a little lazy, bad at defensive rotations - but he has the center body and natural (as opposed to, worked-into) athleticism that Powell can only dream about. He can protect the rim in his sleep. He can finish the PnR quite solidly, perhaps even as good as Powell, presumably without the work and intelligence. I saw both of these during his brief stint with the Mavs. They are empirical, inductively-reasonable, fact.  I don't give a flying eff how lazy or uninterested in basketball he is when the results at the five-spot are already better than Powell. And it's some horrendous thing that the Mavs should bring him back on a Burke-sized contract - so the moralism of work ethic matters that much more than the fundamental results.

I suspect that you are not necessarily the Powell homer that Cuban, Donnie, RC, and a few tools on this board are, and that you just look at WCS and see a bad basketball player in terms of whatever criteria you're looking for. I'm sorry; I can't watch the man play without thinking of Powell. He may not be half the man Powell is, but he's a better basketball player for what might reasonably be asked of both. QED.

Look, I could forgive WCS for flaming out with the Kings. He had the pressure of replacing one of the most talented players in franchise history and it's the Kings. But his next few stops? If there was something there, GSW would have held onto him. He has the physical tools to be good at basketball and he's super intelligent. Basketball just isn't important to him. We could use him again as a stop gap but I'd rather look at almost any other option, they'll probably be more committed and more reliable.