(11-11-2023, 10:27 AM)ThisIStheYear Wrote: The big question for me is did the Mavs end up spending low enough this season to keep  their exceptions so they can resign DJJ?  He’s emerged and is at least as good as DFS.  He’s a must keep now.

(11-11-2023, 10:30 AM)ItsGoTime Wrote: Ya, when I say 48 mins of great C play, I don’t literally mean a full 48 minutes every game for all games. I think we have a good smallball C option in GWill who can keep the 5 out dream alive. I’ve been also saying it lately, Isaiah Stewart has come on strong to begin this season shooting the 3, HE, I think, would be a great Maxi upgrade if after his % normalizes he can stay up there at or above league average. Eventually I think Lively will get to the point where he gets the green light to shoot 3’s as well as it seems that’s a part of his development.

I just really think that our defensive path forward with both Luka and Kyrie on the team is to choose rim protection and rebounding over perimeter defense. Not saying to give up on perimeter defense, just that when 2 of your 3-4 perimeter guys on the court are Luka and Kyrie, you can’t possibly think that having 1 guy out there is going to make that much of a difference.

We all see clearly how well this team works with Lively out there, I’d just like that to be the case for longer than Lively’s minutes (he’s averaging 24.3 mpg so there is a lot of time without him). 

I put out a list of guys I’d like to see as varying degrees of upgrade on Discord a couple days ago. At that time I hadn’t thought about Poeltl. I’m in between your thoughts and Dan’s on him. He is certainly the type of solid upgrade we could use for much of his proven game, but I don’t know enough about him to know if he is good for our offense. I do suppose if he is a hard worker, Luka and Kyrie can make the most out of effort. 

That list was (in no order):
Gafford
Hartenstein 
Allen
Capela
Stewart
Zubac

There are others I’m sure that I don’t have on that list too (especially some of these young up and comers), Poeltl probably should be there IMO.

(11-10-2023, 07:50 PM)ItsGoTime Wrote: I don’t understand why letting Lively develop more off the bench is such a bad thing? IF he proves to be a better player than Claxton, isn’t that an amazing problem to have?

(11-11-2023, 10:37 AM)KillerLeft Wrote: I don’t have any huge issue with your logic, even the parts I’m not sure I agree with fully have validity to them. 

I think where I get off the bus is when we start targeting players already getting paid to be the exact animal Lively is trying to become. I just feel the list of targets, at this point, should be limited to people who can be brought in to play BEHIND Lively and who have financial situations that make sense for the team.

(11-11-2023, 10:48 AM)mvossman Wrote: Its a misallocation of resources.  You are spending multiple firsts on two players that can give you 30 minutes a night but can't be on the court together.  The same goes for Poeltl or any other starting center than will cost significant assets/cap.  This strategy was debated in offseason before we knew what we had in Lively.  I'm surprised folks still want to go this route knowing we already have a legit starting center on the roster.

(11-11-2023, 10:06 AM)surfpuckmd Wrote: It's too early in the season to give up assets in a trade.  We need to give it a couple more months to know exactly what we have.  Kleber deserves a couple of months to see if he can get back to who he was in the 2022 playoffs.  If he can, then our roster looks fairly complete.  If he can't then we can find a competent backup big who's much less expensive than Poeltl.  

I also don't understand why everyone is so down on Josh Green thus far.  I think he's played like he did last season.  Low-usage but efficient on offense.  Makes the occasional great pass and the occasional dumb turnover.  Continues to work hard on defense.  It's great that DJJ and Exum have exceeded expectations.  There will be injuries and rest days and so there will be some minutes for everyone.  KIdd still trusts him enough to play him 25 mpg this season.  Kidd has been very creative with lineups thus far this season depending on the opponent.  Grant Williams has been great this season but only played 16 minutes last night.

Green still has a place here.

(11-11-2023, 09:49 AM)KillerLeft Wrote: I am with you. Poetl has his fans here, but I’ve never been one of them. I totally get that he helps a ton with rebounding, but…is he even a pick and roll guy? THAT’s why Lively has gotten this chance and been so effective. I’m not so sure the Mavs would even be interested in Poetl. 

I’m also seeing a big disconnect between groups of us (fans). I started to make this point in a reply to IGT yesterday, but got distracted before finishing. There seems to be a group who thinks “48 minutes of center play” is the missing piece here. There are lots of different ways to look at that statement, but I’m not sure 48 minutes of Lively/Poetl (that you HAD to go with every night, for financial reasons) is what I’d want in the Mavs’ shoes. 

I could be totally wrong on this - just my feeling, but I think Kleber is the PERFECT complement to Lively as a backup, if only he’d play like the Kleber from two years ago. I haven’t given up on that idea…but even if the Mavs have, it kind of seems to me like they’d need to replace Kleber with a new, better Kleber. Physical and defensive, yes (Kleber used to be both of those things). Rebounding…Kleber has never been great there, so it would be easy to improve on him in that area. 

Point is, if they add a center, shouldn’t it be a guy who offers a way to play 5-out, giving them that option again? And if not, shouldn’t it be at least another guy who can play pick and roll, like Lively and Powell?

(11-11-2023, 10:30 AM)ItsGoTime Wrote: Ya, when I say 48 mins of great C play, I don’t literally mean a full 48 minutes every game for all games. I think we have a good smallball C option in GWill who can keep the 5 out dream alive. I’ve been also saying it lately, Isaiah Stewart has come on strong to begin this season shooting the 3, HE, I think, would be a great Maxi upgrade if after his % normalizes he can stay up there at or above league average. Eventually I think Lively will get to the point where he gets the green light to shoot 3’s as well as it seems that’s a part of his development.

I just really think that our defensive path forward with both Luka and Kyrie on the team is to choose rim protection and rebounding over perimeter defense. Not saying to give up on perimeter defense, just that when 2 of your 3-4 perimeter guys on the court are Luka and Kyrie, you can’t possibly think that having 1 guy out there is going to make that much of a difference.

We all see clearly how well this team works with Lively out there, I’d just like that to be the case for longer than Lively’s minutes (he’s averaging 24.3 mpg so there is a lot of time without him). 

I put out a list of guys I’d like to see as varying degrees of upgrade on Discord a couple days ago. At that time I hadn’t thought about Poeltl. I’m in between your thoughts and Dan’s on him. He is certainly the type of solid upgrade we could use for much of his proven game, but I don’t know enough about him to know if he is good for our offense. I do suppose if he is a hard worker, Luka and Kyrie can make the most out of effort. 

That list was (in no order):
Gafford
Hartenstein 
Allen
Capela
Stewart
Zubac

There are others I’m sure that I don’t have on that list too (especially some of these young up and comers), Poeltl probably should be there IMO.

(11-11-2023, 11:00 AM)mvossman Wrote: I worry this is more of a regular season strategy than a playoff strategy.  A lot of those bigs have struggled or got played off the court to some degree during the playoffs and most of them will cost assets. I thought we had a decent defense with Luka and Brunson during the WCF run (without a dominating center). No reason we can't do that with Luka and Kyrie.

I see the argument to get a vet min backup traditional center for those times when we are getting killed in the paint.  Its a problem that Lively is our only big that can rebound.  McGee would have made sense in this capacity, but I think Luka had issues with him.  Shouldn't be that hard to find somebody, and as Dan has pointed out, we still have a little exception left to go over min if we have to.

(11-11-2023, 11:32 AM)ItsGoTime Wrote: Kinda tired of the pick discussion but undeterred from my stance when we’re going to have 2 more picks available next offseason. That is plenty enough to do what needs to be done after the bigs are solved.

(11-11-2023, 11:18 AM)HAguiar95 Wrote: Holding into that pick, our assets in the summer for a big move would be Green/Hardy/2 1sts/3 swaps

(11-11-2023, 11:36 AM)KillerLeft Wrote: We're all tired of this discussion, but VERY OBVIOUSLY this is not a reason to spend the pick. 

Finding a use for the pick the merits the pick's inclusion is what should prompt a trigger pull on spending it. The absence of remaining picks afterwards isn't the reason for reluctance, it's the proof that basically any other time this franchise has spent a pick in a trade, recently, they've been bad trades. 

If a GM's goal is to spend every resource possible to make the team better right now, all of the time, then they are a poor, poor, poor GM. That method is in the wrong order.

(11-11-2023, 11:48 AM)ItsGoTime Wrote: I don’t think I’ve said anything to the contrary of this statement. I am not wanting to spend the pick because it’s burning a hole in my pocket, I want to spend it on making the team better, because as is, the team is finding great success and I love that, but other than a few hardcore fans, we all know it’s not arrived yet.

(11-11-2023, 12:00 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: And I'll agree the second I see an idea on how to use that '27 that merits its inclusion. Poetl aint it. 

I would use it for OG, but it's probably not enough, and even then...can we be sure that O-Max isn't contributing by playoff time? 

Sometimes the best move is no move at all.

(11-11-2023, 12:12 PM)StrandedOnBeauboisHill Wrote: Who’s ready for green/27 to be moved for Julius Randle?

BE PREPARED

(11-11-2023, 12:51 PM)ItsGoTime Wrote: Sure, but my thoughts don’t require your agreement.