05-22-2024, 12:40 PM
Gafford is far better than he's being depicted here. There's an incredible amount of recency bias and "plus minus tells us everthing" nonsense going on.
In addition, the presence of Gafford makes Lively better, and vice versa, because of things like injuries, fouls, fatigue, bad games at times, and so on. Gafford plays the other teams starter, when he is fresh. If you erase Gafford, you are going to get frustrated with the limits and flaws of Lively, which right now get minimized by having another very playable good center to use.
Most important to consider is that while centers look to be inexpensive, the fact is that the Mavs have shown no ability whatsoever to identify and sign that cheap center. Now that it isn't broke, I don't want to fix it with the next Cauley-Stein, McGee, Powell, etc. I don't care what anyone says, Gafford is WORLDS better than any of those.
In addition, the presence of Gafford makes Lively better, and vice versa, because of things like injuries, fouls, fatigue, bad games at times, and so on. Gafford plays the other teams starter, when he is fresh. If you erase Gafford, you are going to get frustrated with the limits and flaws of Lively, which right now get minimized by having another very playable good center to use.
Most important to consider is that while centers look to be inexpensive, the fact is that the Mavs have shown no ability whatsoever to identify and sign that cheap center. Now that it isn't broke, I don't want to fix it with the next Cauley-Stein, McGee, Powell, etc. I don't care what anyone says, Gafford is WORLDS better than any of those.
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