ROSTER TALK: Mavs favs for Vogel if no HC job exists. Kyrie handshake deal?

[KillerLeft]

since he plays better as a starter and with Luka.

In my mind, this is because he excels as a spot up catch and shoot guy, and because while he can do it (a little), he's less effective as a creator of shots. With Luka on the floor, everyone seems pretty clear about where they stack up in the pecking order, not to mention how many open shots are created playing off of Luka. 

The same thing should be possible playing off of Dinwiddie and especially off of Wood's post ups, but for whatever reason THJ has been forcing things a bit. I don't know if that's him pressing, trying to prove he's important to the team, or something Kidd and staff are actually encouraging him to do, but it's painful to watch, especially given his current level of rust. 

One thing Carlisle did that apparently Kidd has zero interest in doing is actually running plays that use off-ball screening to create open shot windows for Hardaway. In my view, he needs to be on a team interested in playing him that way. That's what got him this contract. If his role is going to be simply about waiting for his man to leave to help on the ball-handler and then hitting the open shot, well...that's helpful, but it's not really different than what's expected of Bullock, DFS or Kleber, so in that scenario he's definitely overpaid.

The difference between my take and most of those I read here is that I feel like there are probably quite a few teams who'd LOVE a chance to acquire a guy who can run around screens and get those shots off...they might want to wait until he proves he's rounding back into form, and they might not want to pay the price the Mavs want, but I don't think it's universally accepted that THJ is "trash" the way people talk around here. I still don't mind the contract a bit - just sucks that they gave it to him and didn't keep him in their design plans.