STATE OF THE MAVS: 5/8 Point

[Mavs2019]

They absolutely did. The results were mixed, but mostly poor IMO. I genuinely think Luka wants to assist more than get his own shot, but I think he genuinely thinks his own looks are so often better than anyone else's.

Cause that´s how teams will play him, until we get him some better teammates.

What we saw again tonight with WCS is that Porzingis is basically a luxury player in Carlisle´s offense. We don´t need his additional skills. All we need from C is a lob threat that plays defense. You can find that for anything between $4M and $20M.

The way we are set-up and with Porzingis not hitting shots, he hurts more than he helps, cause he cannot put it on the floor from the 3pt line, re-drive and create more chaos that will lead to open shots.

It would simply work better, if Luka drove inside, WCS created the lob threat, Luka kicked it out to a Lavine, who then takes the shot or drives at the defense again. Lavine+WCS = $24M, while Porzingis = $31M.

I think the Mavs didn´t want to run into another situation like Dirk, when they could never get him a 2nd superstar and that´s why they pulled the trigger on the Porzingis deal so quickly, but it might have been a poor roster construction decision, especially if they can´t find ways to develop offensive schemes that suit Doncic and Porzingis.

Otherwise we could have used the trade assets in much more productive ways.