Accurately Assessing the Mavs Recent Personnel Changes

[DanSchwartzgan]

DJJ will be missed.  I don't think we will be able to put quite as elite defense on the floor without him.  He also had the advantage that we knew what we were getting and we knew he fit.  Naji is more of a wild card.  He has a better overall offensive game than DJJ, but I am not sure that will translate to anything meaningful.  There is not enough sample to be confident that he will shoot significantly better from 3 than DJJ, in which case he will not improve on the spacing issues.  Its possible Naji continues his upward trajectory and will be better than DJJ, but personally I would have preferred the sure bet.  Fortunately I think the other two are significant upgrades.

For an interesting thought exercise, go back and find the original thread regarding the signing of DJJ.  Crickets.  There was very little reaction in the moment.  No one knew back then what we were getting.  When people put together their depth charts as we headed toward preseason, people had DJJ as the 3rd and sometimes 4th PF.  Not a wing and a mile from being a starter.

Point being, the only reason we can list Marshall as a second string 3/4 is because we saw how that role played out for a year.  But, at this point last year, almost no one had a vision for what ended up happening.  Some watched almost the entire regular season and still thought he couldn't defend the POA.  Are we confident that our prognostications about what Marshall can't do on this team are any better than our prognostications about DJJ a year ago?