2018-19 Pre-All Star Break. We aren't quite there yet. - darkwolf80's Blog

darkwolf80's Blog

2018-19 Pre-All Star Break. We aren't quite there yet.

Posted on February 14, 2014 at 10:46 PM.

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The season has been a little bit of a disappointment since the fantastic opening night win against the Bobcats. It has revealed that we still have some tweaking of the roster to get us where we want to be.

Ray Ray had some more bad luck with a broken finger during the game on November 7th. It was estimated to keep him out for 4-6 weeks. We started the first week with a 4-2 record but we ended up going 7-11 for the month. Our PG play was holding us back somewhat as Larkin has taken a step back this year. His TOs are up and his shooting is down. Tyshawn Taylor has not been quite the backup he was last year as well. We might have to look at upgrading this position as the year goes.

We finished December with a record of 14-20, going 7-9 for the month. Sampay went out with a broken finger on Dec. 15th. Then we lost Thompkins with a broken jaw for 6-8 weeks on Dec. 2nd. The good news was Ray Ray returned from his injury on Dec 12th to provide a boost in the front court. Our back court play was still lacking as D. Francis was having a down year as well. Dorian is a restricted free agent after this year, but the probability of a qualifying offer from us was getting slimmer as Lawson was showing his offensive skills from the bench. They both have some major work to do on the defensive side of the ball nut Lawson has a much higher ceiling.

As the All-Star break came and went we ended up 21-32, going 7-12 for January and the first few weeks of February. This put us 4 games out of the eighth spot for the playoffs. Jabari Parker did end up making the reserves for his third All-Star team.

The trade deadline was a week after the All-Star break and I had to make decisions on what direction we wanted to head for the rest of the year. Our point guard play was one thing that was seriously holding us back and I wanted to see if we could shore up that position going forward. In addition, I was thinking of moving Dorian Francis before he lost all his value. I was hoping to find some strong bench players with favorable contracts going forward as it was only another year before Ray Ray ended his rookie contract and was going to look at getting paid. Having three max or close to max contracts was going to start putting a strain on the budget.

The first deal we worked out was to help strengthen our point guard weakness.
Mavs -Tyshawn Taylor, Raheem Thompson(who I felt was expendable due to Thompkins nice play), Branden Wright(on his final year), and the 2020 2nd Rd pick for
Wizards - Trevor Booker ( a piece thrown in to fit the cap restrictions), Trevor Ariza (could provide solid SG/SF minutes on his final year), and Jase Lavasai (the main reason I did the trade).

Lavasai was the main piece of that trade that mattered to me. He was an immediate upgrade at point guard and allowed me to move Shane Larkin back to a backup which I felt he was much more suited for. Lavasai was also on a favorable contract going forward. As he was set to make an avg of 5M over the next 6 yrs.

Getting Trevor Ariza in the deal made it certain that I was now going to move Dorian Francis. I had plenty of offers for Dorian, and with the play of Lawson from the bench I figured he would benefit from more minutes. The question was do I go after future draft picks, or some front court help off the bench.

In the end getting front court help was more important and I came to an agreement with the Suns on a trade of:
Mavs - T. Booker, and Dorian Francis for
Suns - Alex Len

Out of the offers that were made on Francis there were two big guys that interested me, Alex Len and Isiah Austin. Austin had torched me in the playoff series with the Thunder, so I knew what he could do. It came down to what I thought was the better contract situation. Austin had two years left at 5M a year. Len had 4 years and a team option at an avg of 5.5M a yr. I went with Len figuring Austin would ask for much more than 5M when his deal ended.

With the few deals I pulled, I felt we had shored up some positions of weakness. And we didn't have to trade away any future draft picks to make it happen. The second half of the season would give a good barometer on just how good the new players meshed and if the direction of the team was trending upward.

Dallas Mavericks Depth Chart - 2018-19
	STARTER	2ND	3RD	4TH
PG	Jase Lavasai	Shane Larkin	Luca Tomoni
SG	Russell Lawson	Trevor Ariza	Sergio Munoz
SF	Jabari Parker	Byron Augustin
PF	Julius Randle	Trey Thompkins	Fabijan Novoselec
C	Ray Ray Francis	Alex Len	Chris Sampay