August is the 3 a.m. of the basketball calendar, an hour that none of us should even be awake for. But here we are, out too late or up too soon, whichever you prefer. For me, I’ve reached a pondering state. Tonight, I chose to use it to channel some questions, one per each player on the roster, that seem most pertinent to the Dallas Mavericks season ahead of us — just as soon as the day breaks.
Spencer Dinwiddie: Does he expect to be in the rotation?
As things currently stand, Dinwiddie is the roster’s last addition. He’s not the true 15th man, sure, but a veteran’s minimum contract comes with the inherent expectation that he isn’t owed a rotation spot. But Dinwiddie’s never been out of a team’s rotation, at least not since he broke into the Brooklyn Nets’ in his third season. He’s a useful plug-and-play isolationist — in the basketball sense; I have no clue what he thinks of Woodrow Wilson — who can sort of mimic Luka Dončić or Kyrie Irving when they miss time. Whether he views himself as something more than that, and whether the team does, is the obvious question about his addition to the roster.
I’ll say this: We’ve seen him adapt and adjust his role playing next to Dončić before, becoming much more of a spot-up specialist than an on-ball conductor. He’s a career 33.3 percent 3-point shooter, but that’s slanted due to his many off-the-dribble attempts throughout his career. In the past two seasons, he’s converted 50.8 percent of his corner 3s. While that’s a ludicrous number, it’s not too much higher than his career (43.5 percent). The Mavericks believe this roster has the most shooting Dončić has ever played with. But if Naji Marshall or Quentin Grimes can’t deliver, for whatever reason, there’s a narrow-but-plausible path to him earning rotation minutes.
I don’t believe that’s the plan, though, and neither should he.
Luka Dončić: Does he lead the league in assists?
My colleague Bobby Karalla makes a compelling case for it. I’ll let him take this one.
Dante Exum: How much faith does the coaching staff have in him?
Exum was unbelievably effective last season, and then he wasn’t. But even when the player we saw all season began to reemerge in the Finals, even if only for a glimpse, it still seemed Jason Kidd and his coaching staff hadn’t shaken off the doubt he’d earned from the disappointing performances of the postseason’s recent past. This year’s roster has more than enough guards who could supplant Exum’s rotation role. Because I believe Exum’s quite good, I don’t think they should. But that’s the question for him.
Jaden Hardy: Will he still be in Dallas past February?
Hardy’s entering the final year of his contract and a season where he’s unlikely to have a defined role. The Mavericks’ stance is that he hasn’t earned it and, as a team that just went to the Finals, he can’t be guaranteed minutes. His stance is: Sure, but how does that help me get paid next summer? Both are fair.
Hardy likely believes he can earn a role next season, as he should, but his skillset feels more superfluous than ever given how much shooting Dallas added. (That’s his most proven skill thus far.) If he isn’t in the rotation, it wouldn’t be a surprise if it’s mutually beneficial for him to move on.
Daniel Gafford: How much of a regular season cheat code is he?
Dallas went 18-3 last regular season with Gafford as the starting center. While that spot is expected to go to Dereck Lively II, Gafford did have an outsized effect on that sizzling winning pace at last year’s end. When playing against the league’s bottom feeders, Gafford consistently showed he’s a near-unguardable extension of Dončić’s passing. When he made 33 consecutive shots, it included 18 against the Detroit Pistons and the Chicago Bulls. Teams like that simply cannot stop his pick-and-roll with Dončić.
Sure, we understand that Gafford has limitations against better teams, something we saw in the postseason. But if Dallas ends up with a gaudier win total than the experts think — like 55 or more — I bet it’s in part owed to how easy Gafford makes it to score against the league’s worst squads. The path to a first seed starts with not screwing up the games you should win, after all.
Quentin Grimes: Are the Pistons really this dumb?
Like, come on. There has to be some catch here, right? Why would Detroit give away Grimes in a salary-dump trade that it knew Dallas had to make? Did new Pistons general manager Trajan Langdon read the Aeneid this summer and think I’m gonna try that Trojan Horse thing when he made the move? If an elite Greek fighting force appears within the Mavericks practice facility in the near future — I did recently watch Alien; for Grimes’ sake, I will not elaborate further about the mechanics of how this could work — then I’ll owe Langdon an apology for his successful ruse.
If not, I don’t get it. While Grimes has had some health concerns, he may perfectly solve Dallas’ need for a guard defender and shoot some blistering percentage from 3 while doing so.
Kyrie Irving: What’s his highlight reel going to look like this year?
There are a few other questions that could be asked, I suppose. What’s his future with the team given he can opt out next summer? When will his annual midseason injury come, and how will Dallas fare without him? Is there any possibility at all that the old Kyrie who had such issues with past front offices could still emerge?
But Irving plays for the Mavericks, a statement I still find almost inconceivable sometimes. He’s a glamor player in a thoroughly non-glamor market, not dissimilar to Vince Carter’s three years here but for the fact that Irving’s still fully in his prime. It’s as anachronistic as seeing someone pull out an iPhone in archival black-and-white footage. My advice is to enjoy it.
Maxi Kleber: Does he play more four or five?
Kleber remains a good player, one who will often be a rotation player next season even if his role does shrink some and the post-Kleber future becomes more palpable in Dallas. I’m just curious whether he’s exclusively played next to a center or if we see larger doses of five-out spacing.
A.J. Lawson: Is this spot for Markieff Morris?
It’s a move that seems forecasted for mid-October especially because Morris himself has said he’s returning.
Dereck Lively II: What’s his ceiling, truly?
Lively’s rookie campaign showed his floor: he’ll be a top-100 player and top-10 defender for years in this league even if he doesn’t improve another smidgen. This season’s for finding out how high he can be expected to ascend and how quickly we’ll see it. I don’t think he will or should be shooting 3s this season beyond some pet plays and luxury attempts. There’s plenty more for him to master first: switch defending, defensive timing, short roll scoring, one-dribble drives. But how high he can soar remains the Mavericks’ most delightful unknown.
Naji Marshall: Will he be sponsored by Knife?
Marshall shares his nickname with Dallas’ best steakhouse, Knife, which you really should visit if you haven’t. I need some sort of crossover between him and them. I’m insisting on it, actually.
While I am serious, this slight copout stems from Marshall being the player who has the most questions entering this season. How real was his improved 3-point shooting last season? Can he be matched against point guards as a stopper or is he better served as a floor-raising cog? How often does he close games? Will we devote an entire show in December to the idea that he should be a starter? I couldn’t figure out which one to choose, but I very much expect to enjoy dining on the dry-aged bone-in ribeye that Knife must name for him this season.
Olivier-Maxence Prosper: When does his chance come?
As an occasional Dallas North Tollway driver myself, I have only sympathy for Prosper’s many back-and-forth trips between Dallas and Frisco. He’ll have more in his future, unfortunately. But I do think he gets a chance in the rotation at some point this season. What he does with that, and when it comes, is the question.
Dwight Powell: What will his new look be?
There are no questions about Powell, the basketball player, who will serve as an emergency big man this season, or Powell, the culture setter, who has never understood that the first-in-last-out cliche isn’t supposed to be taken literally. There is a question about which look he’ll add to his aesthetic this season, however. Last season, we saw the arrival of the goatee and the goggles. What’s next?
Klay Thompson: Who does he want to be?
The most important question is what Thompson thinks of the Dallas lakes. For me, at least. I suspect we’ll have several conversations about them. But for the Mavericks, it’s probably one that’s even more existential: Is he here to reinvent himself, or does he still believe in the Klay that once was? This is what hindered his final years in Golden State even as he still largely played excellent basketball. It’s essentially why he’s even here playing for this team. Is he still trying to prove himself, or to himself, that he’s the player he once was? Or is this the right place for him to let that go and maximize his prime’s twilight?
It’s the question that ultimately determines how well this works.
P.J. Washington: Does it matter if he can’t shoot?
Look, if Washington becomes a 40 percent shooter again, good luck to the league. But what I’m more curious about is what happens if he doesn’t. The team’s offense sputtered and crashed in the five-game defeat in the Finals, but every role player failed to make shots. With the roster’s summer reinforcements, is the team better suited to absorb one player’s streakiness? And if not, even if Washington seems like a locked starter, what does it mean for his role? Does he close every game or still play as many minutes even given Dallas’ seemingly improved depth? Does the team rely on him as a guard stopper, a role that isn’t best suited for his defensive strengths?
Washington proved plenty last season. These questions shouldn’t invoke any real concern about him or his season ahead. But becoming a championship-winning basketball team is this team’s next and final step, one which might require tough questions. It’s a spot that this team is glad to be.
