MAVS NEWS: Luka Is Hurt, But is Trudging On | DLive's Mom Passes Away| Maxi OUT

[Chicagojk]

Anyone catch MacMahon on The Lowe Post today? Lots of very interesting Mavs talk. Here are some highlights.

• MacMahon starts off with some pretty frank criticism of the offseason moves, some of which may sound like beating a dead horse around here but is still valid IMO.
  
• MacMahon says the Mavs messed up the Brunson situation. Could have had him on an extension but they didn't offer it to him until after the trade deadline when he had already started playing so well that it was very clear he was going to be able to demand much more in the offseason. They were about a month and a half too late in offering the extension.
  
• Lowe doesn't think Brunson's contract with the Knicks is all that bad and he wonders why they didn't just try to give that to him since the cap is going up anyway.
  
• MacMahon says the Mavs didn't think the Knicks would be able to create so much cap space so easily as they did. Mavs figured the Knicks would at least have to give up a pick to them in order to create enough space to sign him. Oops.
  
• MacMahon says he doesn't know for sure how much it would have taken to keep Brunson here but that the Mavs drew their line in the sand at about Fred Van Vleet money (maybe about 5/110). So that was that.
  
• Mavs messed up the Goran Dragic situation. They didn't think Dragic could play even 20mpg here. They wanted him to fill the "Luka's buddy that never plays" role the Boban has had the last couple years and that Facu is filling now. Dragic didn't want that so he went to Chicago where he is playing very well.
  
• MacMahon says McGee has been "a total bust". Not even better than Powell.
  
• MacMahon doesn't expect any big moves this year because we need to hold onto our picks in order to make a big move for our version of the Jrue Holiday trade.
  

Then they move into some good talk about what they think the Mavs should do on the court this year to maximize what we currently have on the roster.

• Lowe's suggestion is one he admits is pretty simple: We should probably try to get our 3 best offensive creators (Luka, Dinwiddie, and Wood) on the court together more often than we have. There might be defensive concerns, but we should just try it and see. Those three have only played 33 minutes together all season so far. How does the team look if we increase that a bit?
  
• Lowe does concede that the Mavs are -12 with that trio so far but still thinks it's worth giving a little more time to.
  
• MacMahon says Josh Green has taken a major step forward but is not a ball handler, he's a 3nD guy and a good one at that. I'm happy for Josh that he's getting recognition for his great play so far.
  
• Lowe says Mavs are +13 per 100 possessions when Luka and Wood play together with Wood as the only big on the floor. But have only played 78 possessions together so far. Lowe says we should try to lean into more Wood, maybe at the 5, along with Luka and Dinwiddie and see what we have. If it sucks defensively then we can change it, but we need to at least try it out.
  
• MacMahon doesn't think Wood in the starting lineup is going to happen.
  
• Lowe points out that Luka, Maxi, and Wood play very well together. +34 in 104 minutes together.
  

That last stat really stands out to me. I think we should try a closing lineup of Luka, Dinwiddie, DFS, Maxi, and Wood. I think that would give us the best balance of offense and defense of any lineup we can put together.

Anyone have any other thoughts about the pod today?


https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/1592257393479385088?s=20&t=S6Ymt4Hh5WuWSLDXXM78Iw

Thanks for posting.  I have not listened to yet, but will try to in the next few days.  Some rough comments.   

I think there is real debate  if the Mavs are right long term if signing Jalen to 28-30 million was the right decision.   I would have signed him but I am open to the debate otherwise.  The miss for me is the team being short sighted last offseason.    I think that was an easy decision to sign him to the max that he could have received.  Others disagree, but I think that was a major blunder.   They took a bad playoff series where he hardly got any minutes to play through his mistakes and discounted what type of competitor he is, how hard he works and how good he was that season prior to the playoffs.

I also didn't understand not pursuing Dragic, but that one is a little more tricky.  First, I want Josh Green to get minutes.  Second, Hardaway needs minutes as well.   Hardaway is always going to be an awkward fit but the Mavs need to try their best to have him be productive on the court.   Adding Dragic to the mix gets real tricky.   Now it will probably blow up in the Mavs faces if either Luka or Dinwiddie miss 10+ games but trying to find 20 minutes a night for Dragic is much harder in reality.   

Whether Wood starts for me is not ultra important at this time.   I think long term we need to have a better starting option than Dwight for the playoffs.  But for now, I would like to see Wood near 30 minutes a night.  And when he is in the game, I want to run the offense through him for good stretches.   Sort of like what we did against Portland when he entered the game.