The Mavericks just gave Delon Wright $29 million dollars, but the head coach does not know if he will start this season.
Huh?
Recently in Las Vegas Mavs head coach Rick Carlisle explained his thinking on Wright winning a starting job to Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News. "He could be," Carlisle told The News at halftime of the Mavericks' summer league team's game Monday against Sacramento at the Thomas & Mack Center. "I envision this team in a way that we're going to have to have flexibility.
"I don't know that we'll have a full-time starting team. But we wouldn't have made this move if we didn't think he was a starting-caliber player. But the way to win now is to have starting-caliber players top to bottom. We're trying to get as many as we can."
What the what?
Mavericks fans have been let down by the organization who built their hopes up that the summer of 2019 was when owner Mark Cuban and general manager Donnie Nelson were going to add a star player to their roster to add to Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis, or as Nelson said, "split our aces" and bring in several impact players. Cuban boldly proclaimed to NBC 5 media partner 105.3 The Fan, "All I know is, the agents are talking to us and that's all that matters."
We saw how all that talking didn't lead to any free agent signings that made the fan base happy.
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With all due respect to Wright, Seth Curry and Boban Marjanovic are not the "aces" the MFFL were expecting to see. Not one of those three are NBA starters. Splitting aces was interpreted as Patrick Beverley, Malcolm Brogdan or Bojan Bogdanovic.
I'm not trying to beat up on Wright. Townsend said he can help.
"In games Wright starts, he'll likely share backcourt duties with Luka Doncic, with 6-foot-5 Wright playing shooting guard on offense and point guard on defense. Paired with 6-7 Doncic, that would give Dallas one of the NBA's tallest, best-rebounding backcourts. For their careers, Doncic and Wright average a combined 11.3 rebounds per game."
The radio voice of the Mavericks, Chuck Cooperstein, was also complimentary about Wright in recent DMN chat.
"I think Wright, actually, he'll fit pretty well here. You wish he shot the ball a little bit better from deep, he did so a couple of years ago in Toronto, but he absolutely is a secondary ball handler, he's a point guard who can get to the lane and make things happen there. When he got a chance to play significant minutes at point guard for Memphis late last season, he played really well, especially against the Mavericks. He had a pair of triple-doubles, huge triple-doubles. Not any 11, 11 and 10 kind of deals. Both of these were 20-point-scoring games... But he absolutely will be able to help guard people on the perimeter."
The Mavericks brass are big hat and no cattle when it comes to landing free agents. Check the history, I'm not wrong.
Cuban cleared up $30 million in cap space and couldn't get a starter.
They got played by Danny Green. He kept them on hold until Kawhi Leonard made his decision to make the Clippers his new NBA team. According to Mavs beat writer Tim Cato, Dallas did not guarantee the third and final year of their contract offer to Green. That baffles me because Dallas needed him. Green decided to sign with the Lakers on a two year deal.
Here's the bottom line: NBA free agents do not view the Mavericks organization in the same light those IN the Mavs organization do.
They need to do a deep dive as to why they are a big market club in a state with no state taxes and can't land blue chip free agents. Something is off. The Mavs summer free agent plan failed once again and that is the big hat, no cattle rep they have earned.
