The Dallas Mavericks have a problem in their front court: it’s getting a little overcrowded with talent. When they traded for Daniel Gafford during the 23-24 season (along with PJ Washington), they sought to install a veteran presence next to rookie Dereck Lively II, one who could groom him to become an elite 5. As Lively was then under the tutelage of former Mavs champion, Tyson Chandler, he was in no shortage of quality instruction. The Mavs brass knew that, while Lively displayed an extremely high ceiling, they’d need someone with more NBA experience (and sheer mass) at the center position if they were to make it far in that year’s playoffs.
After acquiring Gafford, the team utilized a Gaff-DLive rotation at the 5 which supplemented their all-star back court seamlessly, rocketing the team all the way to the NBA Finals, where they subsequently sputtered against another elite team that just had more experience together as a unit. At any rate, Lively, now entering his 3rd season, has acquired NBA Finals experience very early on in his young career, and he is no doubt acclimated to the pace required of a starting caliber center. And he’s had 3 years to fill out his youthfully lanky frame. Add to all this that he’ll be on a very affordable rookie contract for another two seasons.
The topic of the Mavs front court began to get interesting when the franchise’s fearless leaders deemed it worthwhile to acquire 32 year old Anthony Davis via trade in February of this year. While Davis is approaching the point in time where most NBA players have eclipsed their prime, he’s still an elite two-way player, with the size and defensive prowess that any team would covet, especially a team that loves loves loves talking about defense these days.
Seeing as Davis prefers playing the power forward position, rather than strictly center, the potential for him to start alongside Lively, with Gafford able to sub at the 5, creates a huge, unfairly athletic lineup for Dallas’ front court. And now Dallas has won the NBA Draft lottery and will undoubtedly select Duke 6’9” sensation Cooper Flagg with the first pick. Flagg can play either forward position and has the ball handling skills of a guard. In today’s NBA, position titles offer generalities more than specifics. But the Mavs also have PJ Washington at the forward spot; and Klay Thompson; and Naji Marshall; and Caleb Martin; and OMax. Not a bad problem, but a front court situation to be dealt with, nonetheless, especially when salary aprons are accounted for.
While anything is possible, it seems less likely that the Mavs would part with Lively or Washington before Gafford, based on their respective upside for the team. They’re certainly not considering letting go of AD or their rookie-to-be. So if the Mavs brass do consider the front court to be a problem of too many numbers, is it likely that Gafford will be dealt in free agency, as MMB writer Michael.Harris_80MPH suggested last week? At 27 years old, Gafford has $14 million due to him next season, which is only about $1 million less than Washington. Lively is only set for a little over $5 million as he’s still on a rookie contract, and AD comes in at just over $43 million.
The math might make the best sense to part with Gaff’s contract, but do the stats? His field goal percentage is consistently hovering at all-time great levels. Granted, his shots are almost always within a couple of feet from the basket, but why then doesn’t every big man connect on those types of shots with alarming consistency? His minutes were down slightly from his inaugural season in Dallas due to nagging injuries this year, but at 27 he’s still in peak form, and doesn’t have anything even somewhat resembling AD’s injury history. He’s also a fierce competitor, a team-first guy, and a seemingly pretty fun dude. Lively may be all those things, as well, though.
So what do you do in this situation? Keep them all and hamstring yourself financially, limiting your ability to acquire a much-needed guard while Kyrie is recovering from injury, for the sake of ensuring that another AD injury doesn’t bring the team’s current philosophy to its knees? Surely, almost every Mavs fan is in possession of the correct opinion on this one, right?