(02-26-2021, 04:00 PM)omahen Wrote: I think this is not totally correct. Defense without KP is quite good. Problem is that offense without KP is not, especially as we get basically nothing from our center/power forward line. With KP, offense is very good, but defense is trash (has been so far). With last year KP, our defense would be better as it was last year and our offense would still be near top.
I don't know. With the West being what it is now, being as good as we were last year amounts to running in place at best, while other teams are getting better all around us.
The team made a lot of noise about adding better defensive players, and they did get a few. But guys like Iwundu and the rookies don't appear in competitive minutes, Johnson only plays situationally, and WCS plays limited minutes and often looks clueless, tbh. The only guy they have added in any major way is Richardson, and the results are still a work in progress.
The defense without KP is better, but I don't know if it can be labelled "quite good." To be relevant these days, you have to be able to stop the likes of LeBron and AD, Kawhi and Paul George, Utah's guys, and the other scoring powers in the league. I don't think we're there.
Of course, the real point is not to complain about it, but to question whether it is time to adjust their team-building approach. To date, they are trying to preserve flexibility for that third star, and keeping fair-to-middling guys as the supporting cast pending the resolution. I don't think the Mavs have to be a good team right now -- and, indeed, they aren't. But they need to be getting closer to the goal each season (and that would count taking a step back if they have to lose KP).
Realistically, how much better is a guy like Maxi going to get? He's 29 years old. Or DFS? Sometimes, I think we would like to think those guys are eventually going to turn into almost-Kawhis and Durants and Chris Pauls and the like, but really, what we see is very probably pretty close to what we're going to get, accounting for short-term issues like recovering from COVID.
It seems like, at some point, they may just be spinning their wheels trying to grow this core into something other than a young team trying to graduate into relevance. Maybe they'll need to adjust their vision. Or, then again, maybe not.