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

[StrandedOnBeauboisHill]

Yes, improve the rebounding and defense while also finding success on the edges with small, smart moves will make the world of difference.  It is probably not a one year fix, but you can be a really good team again next year if you improved the defense and rebounding.  Other things need to be fixed but nothing is truly going to get better without fixing these.

I know it was mop up duty the last two games but having AJ Lawson crash the boards a few times was nice to see.  Josh Green does it at times and Powell is good tapping the ball out.  But getting a few more of these a game while also eliminating other teams getting second (and third) chances is huge.   Same thing on defense.    You can live with teams hitting tough threes.  It happens.   Leads evaporate.  But you can't let teams get right at the rim at will.   That leads to easy baskets, free throws, big runs and fast leads lost.   Even if the Mavs are league average in these two, they are in a much better spot.   

I have also found it very frustrating the Mavs have been behind the curves on current trends in the NBA.   When you have a dominant player, you should be a force to lead new trends...not play catchup.

When you start to think about the problems being broken out into three categories instead of just two (defense, o rebounding, d rebouding as opposed to just rebounding in general), you start to realize losing DFS affected two of those greatly because he was our best offensive rebounder from the wing position.  Not sure if AJ Lawson is going to crack the rotation at all but definitely nice to have him at the end of the bench.  One of the reasons I'm an advocate of actually drafting with our pick is because rookies usually learn quickly that in order to stay on the floor they are going to have to provide good defense and good energy (which can lead to offensive rebounding) and there's a lot of kids in this top 10 that will be able to provide that from day one.  The name that myself and Mavs2021 have thrown out there is Taylor Hendricks but it's starting to feel like he's going to move up and be unattainable.  If we do hop into the 3 or 4 spot, I personally hope that we look at Jerace Walker over Brandon Miller simply because he will do those things that we need at a high level out of the gate and we can stick in him in the corner on offense until that part of his game rounds out.