PLAYOFF WCF GAME 5: DAL (1-4) vs. GSW (4-1) | 110-120 loss

[DanSchwartzgan]

Or, here’s another thought exercise. The Mavs keep Luka and Brunson. The Warriors keep Clay, Steph, and Green (none of whom are who they used to be but still are the Golden Sate core). The Warriors could even keep Wiseman, the single otherwise unobtainable player the tank allowed them to get. Then, switch the rest of the rosters, the coaching, and the organizational cultures. Who wins the series then?  That looks like a blowout to me in favor of the Mavs. Probably five games going the other way this time.

There’s nothing meaningful that the Warriors built that is unavailable to the Mavs.  The Mavs have no excuses going forward.

That IS an interesting thought exercise (see what I did there).  I think you are probably right but not because LD/JB are superior to the GS trio.  It is because the rest of GS is really good.  People make a big deal out of the miss on Wiseman, but the difference making move really came when they lost KD and took on the obviously ill-fitting Russell.  Turning that into Wiggins and the pick that became Kuminga (who is absolutely frightening) was a master stroke of GM’ing.

The other thing they’ve done well is collect good and inexpensive depth.  They paid a total of $13mm this season for Poole, Payton, Bjelica, Otto Porter and Looney.  Those guys aren’t stars on their own, but plug into the system well.  Dallas needs to hit on something like this (or like what LAC did with Batum) or at least be willing to do something along the lines of what Phoenix did to get Crowder (who reportedly could have been ours except for our unwillingness to go multi-year to preserve cap room for a Sammy Superstar chase…this time Lowery).