2020-2021 ROSTER TALK: Archived

[omahen]

I'd probably say we have 8 players with Willie Cauley-Powell serving as backup C.  So, in an 8 man rotation, bigs are KP, Maxi and WCP.  Wings are JRich, THJ and DFS and Ball handlers are Luka and Brunson.

I couldn't care less about WCS, he is just a vet min center for me. One of 100 out there. It will never be a problem to sign a couple of them. Mavs problem is they are paying 3 centers who barely play or not play at all over vet min money. Mavs went KP way and I think they fully understand KP injury limitations. You can't construct a roster paying premium back up center to be available to jump in when KP is injured but play just 10 minutes when he is not. You have to survive with WCS/Powell/Bobans of the world when KP is not available. You have to survive 20 or so regular season games without KP and hope he is available for playoffs. 

As for JRich. Wright had awesome advanced stats but eyetest looked awful. He was shooting 37 % from three... But what does it help when he is afraid to shoot it. JRich is not affraid to shoot it. In stats regard he is the other way around - good eyetest, bad stats. On defense he does his job. His defense against Lillard was great, he played great defense against Clippers to name just last couple of games. I am not sure why team stats are worse, but eye test tells me he does his job. We discussed a while ago the team performance of JRich might be affected by KP who had bad defense until some 10 games ago. As for offense, we hoped more in shot creation but it is passable imho. I am still hoping for his three point shooting to come around. Hopefully, when it matters most. I think replacing JRich with offensive oriented guy like Fournier would be a huge step in the wrong direction. I claim Curry trade was great and I would do it again. Mavs had no future with that personel totally unable to play defense. Curry for Fournier (via Richardson) is not a trade in the right direction, imho. You would have to move THJ for a better defender also. From the list you wrote Lonzo and Lowry are the only options imho. 

I listened to that Cato podcast and I agree with the discussion - there are a couple of guys we are just asking to do too much. Insert one guy in between and move them a spot lower and everything might start working well. Assuming we just upgrade JRich with a better player, lets say this is Ball. I don't think it would be enough as we would still be asking DFS and Kleber to do too much. I claim an upgrade in this case would be marginal. Unless you are bringing in a star, replacing one of the guys with a (slightly) better one is not a solution. That's why I firmly believe the solution is to add another guy to the rotation. In a sense DFS and JRich are similar players. Good defenders (perhaps not elite, but still good) with limited offense. When looking to replace any of them you have to bring in at least same amount of defensive capability to be able to have good defense. Still, I think JRich is better offensive player than DFS. That's why, when looking at upgrades, even if they come at guard, I would mainly reduce DFS minutes. I think Luka size allows us to play two guards with him. So trade for Ball or Lowry (for example) and start (for example) Ball-JRich-Luka-Kleber-KP with Brunson, THJ, DFS and a back-up center taking bench minutes.

The other hole we have is at big wing so that represents the other possible way to upgrade for me. Same way - keep the seven rotation guys and add another big wing in the rotation, reducing both Kleber and DFS minutes (but still keep them in the rotation). Collins pipedream, Gordon, OPJ and Young were often mentioned candidates who could fill that spot. 

To conclude - spending assets (this includes cap space) to replace one of the existing 7 rotation guys will bring a marginal improvement and further limit our possibility to really upgrade the team in the long term. We need to add another capable guy to the rotation.