Mike Fisher of DallasBasketball.com has a solid, if not groundbreaking, take on the why’s and why-not’s of the Mavericks (in)activity on draft day. You can read his take here.
In short, despite being “in the war room”, Fisher doesn’t really know why the Mavericks didn’t jump up into the late first round or earlier into the second round to grab some of the sliding talent. But his guesses seem pretty sound as usual.
One point he doesn’t make is that most of the players available at that range were in fact sliding. And I think that is an important consideration. Their draft stock was falling quickly and many teams, essentially every team, passed on them repeatedly. Sure, most fans like to see their team take some gambles and be aggressive. But sometimes, when everybody else is running the other direction one would be wise to flee as well.
And lastly, we have to wonder if any of the guys in play at that point of the draft really fit into the Mavericks plans. If you go back and read Mark Cuban’s blog entry at the end of the season you can see that the Jason Kidd trade was a significant milestone in the team’s life cycle. Not only did they send away their young and talented point guard Devin Harris, but they put an emphasis on the life span of the current construction of the team.
Kidd’s sizable contract represents two really important facts. Cuban will spend big money over a short period of time to try to win an NBA championship and Cuban has prepared the team for a major overhaul in the near future.
So, when you look at the rookies available in this draft (in the part of the draft the Mavs could have reasonably moved into) you have to ask if they work in the current plan? Apparently, the answer is no. Is Darral Arthur or CDR likely to contribute more this season than the players you already have or you can likely sign? The answer is probably not. Could they contribute two or three years from now? Probably a few of them could and would. Some will essentially flame out by then.
Now, consider what happens when Cuban IS ready to totally re-make this team? What are the chances that one or two off-seasons from now Cuban can reach out and add three or four young players (possibly rookies) in a single off-season? As he proved several years ago, and the Trailblazers proved over the past two drafts, in one or two off-seasons any committed owner can rebuild his team as long as they are not overly constrained by the salary cap.
And Cuban has worked hard in recent years to get this team into the magical balance of committed enough to win now but not over committed to have no flexibility later.
My guess is that two years from now fans will hardly recognize the Mavericks compared to this season’s roster AND fans will be excited about what they see. Even if it isn’t as strong of a contender as they (arguably) have today. The next generation Mavericks are not that far away. Cuban has wisely left himself room to completely change this franchise then without giving up hope now.