Dennis Smith, Jr. of N.C. State is the player I’ve been asking the Mavericks to draft for months now.
The Mavs attended his pro day workout in Raleigh last week. Trade up to get him if you have to Mark Cuban.
The Mavericks are not going to win a thing with Yogi Ferrell being their starter. Same goes for Seth Curry. They are not starting point guards on a contending team in the NBA.
If Dallas ever plans to get out of the West and back to the NBA Finals they must get a difference making point guard. Just look at the point guards in the Western Conference:
Golden State has Seth Curry. Two-time MVP, and he’s been to the NBA Finals three straight years with two wins.
Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook will probably win the MVP later this month.
Houston Point Guard James Harden should finish runner-up for the MVP award to Westbrook.
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Chris Paul is still the Clippers point guard and I don’t think he will leave despite being a free agent this summer.
Memphis may have the most underrated point guard in the West, Mike Conley.
Portland has a beast in Damian Lillard.
Denver has Dallas-native Emmanuel Mudiay running the point.
Phoenix has a talented player in Eric Bledsoe.
That’s a stacked group of point guards and this is why I continue to beat the drum for Dennis Smith, Jr. Smith put up 18.1 points, 6.2 assists and 4.6 rebounds per game in his only season with a bad Wolfpack team that didn’t qualify for the NCAA Tournament. He was also the ACC Rookie of the Year.
Smith is the most athletic point guard, and maybe the most athletic player regardless of position, in this class. Los Angeles Daily News reporter Mark Medina reported Smith recorded a vertical jump of 48 inches during a workout with the Lakers.
His former coach at NC State Orlando Early declared about the 6-3 point guard in an interview , “He can be handling the ball and, all of a sudden, bang! and he’s dunking it,” Early said. “He’s just so explosive.”
Smith has been compared to Westbrook and former MVP Derrick Rose. "I want to win Rookie of the Year," he said Wednesday at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on NBA Draft media day. "Not too many [individual] accolades, I just want to come in and be the best teammate I can be be, the best player I can be and I think everything else will take care of itself."
Need more convincing? Fran Frachilla of ESPN, who lives in Dallas, raves about him. "Three years ago (Washington point guard) Markelle Fultz, (Kansas shooting guard) Josh Jackson and Dennis Smith Jr. were all on the same level," Fraschilla said. "Dennis gets hurt before his senior year in high school, tearing his ACL. He comes back this year and plays on a dysfunctional team (at N.C. State). People were blaming him for the team not being as good, and all of the sudden the perception becomes, 'Well, maybe he’s not as good as we thought.'"
"But you’re talking about a guy who is a junkyard dog, who is strong, gets to the basket, is tough and always plays with a chip on his shoulder. He’s a kid who could slide and all of a sudden a team picking ninth, 10th, 11th goes, 'Oh my god. We’ve got to take him. It’s a no brainer.'
The Mavericks need to draft Dennis Smith, Jr.
