vanillabryce said:

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Stefano DiMera said:

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This folks is why you play the game. Kidd has been masterful with this team.

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Yes he has. They beat CP3 into the ground, made Booker look like a rookie, and PHX couldn't match it in terms of adjustments

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btw - I stand by my earlier comment that the Suns have superior talent, Dallas quite literally wanted it more and was coached perfectly

Assassin said:

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vanillabryce said:

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Stefano DiMera said:

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This folks is why you play the game. Kidd has been masterful with this team.

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Yes he has. They beat CP3 into the ground, made Booker look like a rookie, and PHX couldn't match it in terms of adjustments

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btw - I stand by my earlier comment that the Suns have superior talent, Dallas quite literally wanted it more and was coached perfectly

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The thing about basketball, especially in the NBA, is that cumulative talent doesn't matter as much when the other team has the best player on the floor.

Guys like Luka are literal game-changers. Put the right role players around them and they can carry you all the way to a title. We saw it happen in 2011 with Dirk. It would be pretty incredible to see Luka do the same thing at 23.

Agree and conversely, it's hard to hide deficiencies in individuals. The Mavs isolated on a small, aging point guard and picked him up full court.

bear2be2 said:

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Assassin said:

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vanillabryce said:

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Stefano DiMera said:

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This folks is why you play the game. Kidd has been masterful with this team.

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Yes he has. They beat CP3 into the ground, made Booker look like a rookie, and PHX couldn't match it in terms of adjustments

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btw - I stand by my earlier comment that the Suns have superior talent, Dallas quite literally wanted it more and was coached perfectly

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The thing about basketball, especially in the NBA, is that cumulative talent doesn't matter as much when the other team has the best player on the floor.

Guys like Luka are literal game-changers. Put the right role players around them and they can carry you all the way to a title. We saw it happen in 2011 with Dirk. It would be pretty incredible to see Luka do the same thing at 23.

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Wouldnt disagree with that. We shall see against a potential better player(Steph) than Luka (on any given day. Luka may prove to the NBA that he is superior with a lessor cast

vanillabryce said:

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Agree and conversely, it's hard to hide deficiencies in individuals. The Mavs isolated on a small, aging point guard and picked him up full court.

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That was Sun coaching. They have to see that over the first few minutes and adapt

courtesy Five Thirty Eight in case you like numbers;

[url=https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/weve-made-a-slight-correction-to-our-nba-model-sorry-luka/?addata=espnallas:index]We've Made A Slight Correction To Our NBA Model. (Sorry, Luka!)[/url]
By FiveThirtyEight
MAY 17, 2022, AT 1:32 PM

Going into the playoffs, our NBA model wasn't particularly high on the Dallas Mavericks' chances of making a deep run. We gave Dallas only a 37 percent chance of beating the Utah Jazz in the first round and a 12 percent chance of making the Western Conference finals. But that was before Luka Doni returned from injury and then went nuclear in the playoffs, averaging 31.5 points, 10.1 rebounds, 6.6 assists and 1.9 steals per game with a 58.7 true shooting percentage and an absurd +14.9 RAPTOR plus/minus rating. Now the Mavs are on the cusp of an NBA Finals appearance, and as of this morning our model was very high on Dallas's chances.

A little bit too high, as it turns out.

As a quick refresher, our RAPTOR projections incorporate an adjustment for playoff performance based on a player's career RAPTOR ratings in the playoffs versus the regular season, with an emphasis on more recent seasons. But after digging around earlier today, we found that we had been implementing this in a clumsy way for our real-time projections, such that they were adjusting more than we intended for 2022 playoff performance.

This was most noticeable in the case of Doni, who is having a historically great postseason. Before fixing the bug in our playoff adjustment, Doni was appearing as nearly a +13 points-per-100-possessions player, relative to league average. If that was indeed his true talent, he would be on par with Michael Jordan or LeBron James at their peaks and he has played even better than that so far in the playoffs. But a player's RAPTOR playoff adjustment should evolve very slowly over time, since we operate under the strong belief that most players play roughly the same in the playoffs as they do in the regular season, with a few exceptions. With only 857 career playoff minutes under his belt, Doni hasn't quite played at this level in the postseason long enough to justify a LeBron-like adjustment, much less a playoff adjustment several times larger than any player in NBA history.

Doni's playoff adjustment is now a much more reasonable +0.6 on top of his already great regular-season rating. That means the model is still comparatively bullish on Luka and the Mavs (we give them a 54 percent chance to make the Finals), just not as much as it was before we discovered this bug. Though if Doni keeps playing as well as he did against the Jazz and Suns, no playoff adjustment will really matter in the end.

OKC got alittle lucky, Houston not so much.

The Final Order NBA Draft Lottery

1. Orlando (up from No. 2)
2. Oklahoma City (up from No. 4)
3. Houston (down from No. 1)
4. Sacramento (up from No. 7)
5. Detroit (down from No. 3)
6. Indiana
7. Portland
8. Los Angeles Lakers (to New Orleans)
9. San Antonio
10. Washington
11. New York
12. LA Clippers (to Oklahoma City)
13. Charlotte
14. Cleveland

The Athletic way too early Mock

Quote:

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26. Dallas Mavericks
MarJon Beauchamp | 6-6 wing | 21 years old | G League Ignite
Beauchamp has an awesome story of perseverance, essentially carving out his own path after choosing not to go to college. He worked his way into getting an Ignite contract this year and impressed scouts with his willingness to do all of the little things. He defends well on the ball with real switchability because of his 6-foot-11 wingspan. He is aggressive in crashing the glass. He cuts and makes things happen.
He has become the kind of dirty-work-style wing who does whatever the team needs of him. Ultimately, NBA teams will need him to shoot, and I'm a bit skeptical he can do that, which is why he's more of an end-of-the-first-round guy. But if the shooting comes, he could be a valuable rotation player.

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How we doing?

I am feedless for this game, not sure what is going on

44-34 Dallas over GS with 8 mins in the 1st half

Dallas kicking the Warriors butt in the first half, 72-58

GSW has gone zone

vanillabryce said:

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GSW has gone zone

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A Tale of Two Halves

Draymond Green about 2 other guys looked 40-50lbs heavier than our heaviest

We are simply missing the big guys in the middle, If we could protect the paint the threes would becomme record after record

Great third quarter but they ran out of gas.

Golden state simply has better talent. BIg off season for Dallas. THey gotta pick up a Draymond Green type hulk

Getting to play with 77.... thats gotta be inviting. He loves feeding the big guys. We have a few parts we can throw in along wth a late #1 if its a trade

Doncic and hhttps://basketball.realgm.com/analysis/267010/Luka-Doncic-And-His-Indistinct-Supporting-Castis indistinct supporting class

Who Dallas might take at 26

Jalen Brunson, Dallas Mavericks, unrestricted

Jalen Brunson has earned about $6 million in his four-year NBA career. He could be making more than triple that during next season alone. The former second-round pick is enjoying a career year with the Mavericks. He put up 16.3 points and 4.8 assists in 31.9 minutes per game (all career highs) with impressive shooting splits of 50.2/37.3/84.0 in the regular season. And Brunson has upped his game even more in the postseason, averaging over 23 points per game. Dallas reportedly didn't even offer Brunson the four-year, $55 million extension he was eligible for prior to this season. Now, it's going to take much more than that to keep the 25-year-old in a Mavs uniform.

And, yes, it's almost certain the Mavericks will acquire another center. "If you look back on the series (we played), we lost some games on the boards," Harrison said. "We need to get someone who can help us on the rebounds. Get a rim protector, we need to figure that out." As valuable as Maxi Kleber was this postseason, there are various reasons age, injuries, inconsistency, ineffectiveness when playing heavy minutes that rule him out from being a realistic starting center on a team with title aspirations. Getting someone to complement him is the team's unquestioned priority this summer. Anything else they can do to improve this roster is a bonus.

Mavs trade with the Rockets, and I can already see the headline:

"Mavs Get Wood"

And with the 26th pick, the Mavs select Christian Wood

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/rockets-made-christian-wood-trade-084709772.html

EvilTroyAndAbed said:

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And with the 26th pick, the Mavs select Christian Wood

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/rockets-made-christian-wood-trade-084709772.html

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Sources: The Mavericks are sending Boban Marjanovic, Sterling Brown, Trey Burke, Marquese Chriss and the No. 26 pick to the Rockets for Christian Wood. https://t.co/fbxxAL7OGu

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 16, 2022

Not sure how you can say it was a bad trade. Wood, 26, averaged 19.1 points and 9.9 rebounds during his two seasons with the Rockets. He is due to make $14.3 million for the 2022-23 season, the final year of his contract.

We will know if he fits in with our current top guys before a new contract comes.

who were you going to get with pick 26 plus you got rid of some expiring contracts and kept your top players

As for Houston, The Rockets now have the Nos. 3, 17 and 26 picks in the June 23 draft. Interesting

Like Kleber, Wood is capable of filling an increasingly important role in the modern NBA: playing power forward during the regular season than sliding down to center in the playoffs as teams downsize. Wood's ability to both make 3s (he shot a career-high 39% last season on a robust 5.8 attempts per 36 minutes, nearly as many as Kleber's 6.3 attempts) and provide a modicum of rim protection will give Dallas coach Jason Kidd the flexibility to play him with any of the team's other frontcourt options.

Per Second Spectrum tracking via ESPN Stats & Information, only Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns (1.19) averaged more points per chance on at least 100 pick-and-pop plays last season than Wood (1.16). That's convenient given Doncic ran the most such plays as a ballhandler (974) in the NBA during the regular season. Doncic and Kleber were a particularly potent pick-and-pop pairing, and Wood can do the same.

Including the first-round pick's salary, the five players Dallas is sending out would have cost nearly as much in 2022-23 as Wood. However, the Mavericks still have to fill those spots, and doing so even with players at the veteran's minimum would add more than $10 million to their projected tax bill -- before re-signing Brunson. It's been a while since Dallas has been a huge spender in terms of luxury tax, and it will be interesting to see whether Mavs governor Mark Cuban is ready to do so after the team reached the conference finals.

One possible money-saving move, particularly midseason, would be moving on from the popular Powell. He's set to make $11 million in the final season of his contract and might not be needed for the playoffs if the Mavericks can cover the center spot with a combination of Bertans, Kleber and Wood.

Trey Burke, Sterling Brown, Marquese Chriss and Boban Marjanovic played a combined 99 minutes during Dallas' playoff run and all had guaranteed contracts for 2022-23, though no money that would affect Houston's 2023 cap space. (Burke holds a player option, which he'll have to exercise to be included in this trade. Doing so is a no-brainer; he'll even benefit from a trade bonus worth $247,500 according to ESPN's Bobby Marks.)

Kinda pulling for Warriors in the Finals tonight as they beat us. However if the Celtics pulled it out, I would not shed a tear, GS up 3-2

Boston -3.5 at the betting windows

Wood is a more reliable shooter, 38 percent from three for his career and a sparkling 39 percent on five attempts per game last season. For his career, Wood has only had a true-shooting percentage under 58 percent just once, in his rookie season. Porzingis has only reached or eclipsed that true-shooting mark once in his entire career.

The point is the Mavericks are continually creating new options and opportunities for themselves, which is a welcome sign from first-year general manager Nico Harrison. This is now Harrison's second major trade in a four-month period, and anyone worried about the Mavericks roster stagnation from the previous few seasons have to be happy now the trade of Porzingis and the additions of Dinwiddie, Woods, and Bertans represent the biggest roster shakeups since the Mavericks originally traded for Porzingis and traded away Harrison Barnes in 2019.

Whether the Mavericks are better next season in an improved Western Conference is still up for debate, but it's clear the Mavericks aren't standing pat and have a plan. Which after how the previous regime burned out, that's all anyone can really ask for.

Dallas and Houston cannot officially complete the trade until draft night because the Mavericks owe the New York Knicks a top-10 protected pick in 2023, and the NBA prohibits teams from trading first rounders in consecutive years

Harrison has highlighted re-signing Brunson the Mavericks' lone free agent on the 15-man roster this offseason as the team's No. 1 priority.

They'll also have a $10.9 million trade exception (set to expire June 29 from last year's Josh Richardson deal) and a luxury-taxpayer mid-level exception available.

One way for Mavs to ease the sting of trading Luka Doncic's bff Boban?
Pursuing Goran Dragic with the extra space…
Hypothetical new lineup:
10 already under contract
Christian Wood
Brunson re-signing (?)
Theo Pinson re-signing (?)
Dragic (?)
Taxpayer mid-level

To echo @Marc Stein's recent tweet: Mavs have always planned to sign Theo Pinson to a traditional contract this offseason with his two-way eligibility up and spirit as crucial as on-court production.

Trading the bottom 4 of the 15-man roster will make it that much easier.

Christian Wood is one of 14 players in the NBA to average 15 points and 10 rebounds this season.

Since the All-Star break, he averaged 19.4 points, 9.7 rebounds, while shooting 57.8% from the field and 45.7% from 3.

Chuck Cooperstein @coopmavs

This is not the first time the Mavs have had an association with Christian Wood. He was part of their Summer League team in Orlando that won the title in 2017 10:23 PM

• Colorado State's David Roddy is scheduled to work out for the Mavericks on Friday, tweets Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News. Dallas won't have any picks once the Wood deal goes through, but the team could try to trade into the late first round or early second round, where Roddy is projected to be taken.

Mavs new squad
Luka Doncic
Jalen Brunson
Reggie Bullock
Dorian Finney-Smith
Christian Wood

Bench:
Spencer Dinwiddie
Tim Hardaway Jr
Davis Bertans
Maxi Kleber