FA: Naji Marshall To DAL | 3yrs/27mil

[Dundalis]

I just don't think he lives up to the defensive bar that DJJ left. I think his hot shooting will regress a little. I think Grimes is going to look so much better that the Mavs are going to be forced to choose between playing Grimes or Marshall minutes.

Just a bunch of little small things thats giving me the gut feeling that the Mavs are going to move on from Marshall and probably get a little bit more athletic.

Lets see if I'm wrong.

The chances of a player shooting worse over a large enough sample size next to Luka is slim IMO, unless there's something fundamentally wrong with your mentality coming in to the team (Grant Williams). We've already seen it with a multitude of players. You will have the most consistently wide open looks of any time in your career.

To me the athleticism thing is slightly overblown. We leant on athleticism particularly on offense partially as a way to make up for just not being a very good shooting team. Its the same thing as NBA fans constantly saying Luka was too unathletic early on. You can make up for it in other ways, and from the looks of it the way Marshall makes up for it is with length and intense physicality defensively. That can 100% make up for lesser athleticism on the defensive end. This team being a top 10 and significantly better shooting team next season is already pretty much guaranteed I would say. Do you wanna keep the athleticism, yeah, but again, if we are just shooting way better as a team, that can make up for whatever added athletic benefit DJJ gave last season. There are plusses and minuses across the board, unfortunately you have to give and take a little, you don't get to tick off every box on acquisitions.

IMO Marshall's last season was significantly better than anything DJJ produced in his career prior to Dallas, and DJJ's season I think was heavily a production of playing with Luka offensively, and Lively and Gafford defensively, DJJ's production was far more them that it was him having some huge mid career improvement. Marshall will get a turn having the massive role boost of playing alongside those guys now. I could see DJJ's shooting and defense fall off a decent amount with the Clippers, especially if hes given an explanded role due to the contract he will get, and the loss of PG.