Regardless of whether Nowitzki wants fanfare or not, the Mavs have launched DFWDigsDirk.com for fans to show support for ze German. Nothing too special, but the Mavs’ official store is offering a 41% discount on all Dirk merch as part of Dirk’s honorary week.
Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News: “…I would be shocked if the Mavericks don’t hang around the hoop and try to get a rebound in the Chris Bosh situation. People have been downplaying Bosh because he may end up being a package deal with LeBron James. But Bosh met early today with Houston GM Daryl Morey and if the Rockets are making a push for Bosh on the basis of pairing him with a perhaps-healthy Yao Ming, the Mavericks can do better than that. If the package deal with LeBron falls through, the Mavericks should be in the hunt for the 6-10 hometown kid, even if he’s a little reluctant to play in his backyard and put that extra pressure on himself. Dirk would help him alleviate it.”
Even though the Mavs may look like a better team on paper, the Rox are far and away the more likely Bosh destination. For one, Houston has a plethora of interesting assets (their own draft picks, the Knicks’ draft picks, young talent, expiring contracts) that could tempt the Raptors in a sign-and-trade, but the bigger issue is Bosh’s willingness to suit up for Houston. He’s a far more natural fit alongside Yao than he is alongside Nowitzki, and don’t think for a second that Chris doesn’t know that. Considering how set he is on playing power forward, he may be the least attainable free agent out there.
Even though the summer’s premier free agents give the Mavs a nice pipe dream to chase, the far more realistic option is an Al Jefferson/Andre Iguodala style trade without the red tape of free agency.
According to ESPN Dallas’ Tim MacMahon, the Mavs were one of the teams to contact Matt Bonner. He wouldn’t be a bad get as far as bench bigs go, really.
Keep this page bookmarked, it will no doubt come in handy. This one, too.
Ken Berger of CBS Sports reported that Miami and Cleveland have legitimate interest in Brendan Haywood, which appears to be true. However, he also reported (as did Brian Windhorst of the Cleveland Plain Dealer) that there was potential for a double sign-and-trade involving Brendan Haywood and Shaquille O’Neal, which was denied by Marc Stein. It makes sense; sources with the Cavs might indicate that a trade was in the works, because it’s likely that Cleveland would initiate such discussions. However, there would be no reason at all for the Mavs to entertain the idea of bringing in O’Neal.
Donnie Nelson clearly prefers veteran free agents to undrafted ones, and for obvious reasons. There are a number of intriguing veteran options to be had on the market for a chunk of the Mavs’ MLE, but I can’t help but wonder: does that also open the door for a D-Leaguer or two?
Caron Butler on Twitter, back on Tuesday a little before midnight: “About to check out twilight ill get back and let you’ll know what’s good holla”
The 2010 free agent class is unprecedented in many ways. Never before has a group of athletic mercenaries been so thoroughly dissected, endlessly analyzed, and hotly anticipated. Once the shenanigans begin on July 1st, all sorts of fun will be had, as so many franchises across the league will y be either destroyed or reborn in a cleansing fire.
Now, pay close attention, because while everyone is paying attention to the glitter at the head of the class, plenty of interesting things will be going on at the tail. Players like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are proven and invaluable, but the summer will also yield completely untested prospects: undrafted free agents. In a typical NBA off-season, that doesn’t mean much; occasionally a team may unearth a role player from the undrafted ranks, but even that only happens on the rarest of occasions. Yet the survivors of this year’s draft seem a bit different. There obviously aren’t any earth-shaking talents in the bunch, but there are a number of interesting players that are viable candidates not only for a Summer League roster, but perhaps a spot on the Legends or even more.
Obviously not all of those prospects are going to pick Dallas over all of their other suitors, but the early returns are promising. Despite a mini-report from Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports, a Twitter exchange between St. Mary’s center Omar Samhan and Mark Cuban indicates that Samhan will indeed be a part of the Mavs’ Summer League team. Harvard point guard Jeremy Lin is also tabbed as a part of the fun. That’s a hell of a start, especially since Rodrigue Beaubois and Dominique Jones will headline. It should be interesting to see how the rest of the Vegas roster turns out.
Unfortunately, the Mavs have to do without a number of players they had expressed a clear interest in.
And plenty of others — Sherron Collins, Art Parakhouski — are taken (in some capacity), too. That doesn’t mean the Mavs won’t be able to make a run at them after Summer League concludes if they’re so inclined, but it likely puts them at a slight disadvantage to the incumbents.
There are plenty of prospects still out there (Mikhail Torrance, Charles Garcia, Mac Koshwal, Aubrey Coleman, etc.), but the demand for these players is clear. By now, I’m sure the appropriate calls have already been placed. That makes the process less of a selection and more of a waiting game. The Summer League roster should be assembled in about a week’s time, which doesn’t leave much time for anticipation. Still, it’s worth keeping tabs on the unclaimed third round draftees over the next few days.
Draft day is upon us. Although the events of this week make moving up in the draft a costly proposition, there’s still an outside chance the Mavs will move up in the second round or even into the late first. Regardless, there should be an interesting prospect of some kind on the board when the Mavs are finally on the clock with the 50th pick. Here are all of the draft previews featured here over the last few weeks (in alphabetical order):
If the pre-draft buzz is to be believed, Vasquez and Torrance could actually be gone by the end of the first round, with Zoubek not far behind them. Booker should also be out of the question by the time pick no. 50 rolls around, meaning that it’s extremely unlikely that Dallas will be able to draft a player that’s NBA-ready.
Feel free to peruse the per-possession stats of all of the previewed prospects (and all of the players the Mavs have worked out that weren’t previewed) in the chart below. You can sort by any of the listed measures, or classify by position to compare against the rest of the crop.
Player
POS
TS%
eFG%
ORB%
TO%
AST%
FTR
USG%
STL%
BLK%
DRB%
Jon Scheyer
PG/SG
57.2
50.2
2.2
11.5
25.8
41.6
23.1
2.6
0.6
8.4
Art Parakhouski
C
58.6
58.4
15.6
14.0
7.3
65.8
27.9
0.9
6.0
23.6
Charles Garcia
PF
53.1
49.0
9.7
22.0
8.4
75.8
34.9
0.8
2.9
24.9
Greivis Vasquez
PG/SG
54.8
49.6
3.8
18.4
35.2
31.3
30.5
2.8
1.0
10.2
Dexter Pittman
C
63.8
65.4
16.5
20.4
5.0
63.0
24.5
1.0
8.9
15.3
Sylven Landesberg
SG
53.0
47.3
4.9
14.5
22.2
36.0
30.1
1.5
0.9
13.3
Luke Harangody
SF/PF
55.1
50.5
8.2
10.6
11.8
35.1
31.9
0.8
2.1
24.1
Brian Zoubek
C
62.6
63.8
21.6
21.8
9.7
55.3
17.7
2.1
4.0
24.4
Mikhail Torrance
PG
59.3
52.5
1.1
19.5
33.6
44.9
25.6
1.5
0.8
11.9
Trevor Booker
PF
54.9
53.3
10.0
14.4
17.3
47.3
24.8
2.4
4.6
20.4
Mac Koshwal
PF/C
55.0
54.4
11.9
20.7
15.3
48.2
28.1
3.3
2.8
20.9
Chas McFarland
C
49.4
44.5
9.9
23.7
6.0
75.3
18.4
1.0
4.6
18.9
Michael Washington
PF
54.8
50.7
9.1
15.9
6.3
62.9
24.8
1.4
5.0
18.1
Mouhammed Faye
SF/PF
53.6
51.2
8.4
16.1
7.9
34.5
23.5
1.4
2.7
17.3
Donald Sloan
PG
55.2
49.6
2.3
15.6
16.7
45.3
27.1
1.1
0.1
9.9
Matt Janning
SG
51.6
47.2
1.8
14.8
20.1
33.1
25.7
2.7
0.5
11.5
Aubrey Coleman
SG
51.5
46
6.3
10.2
15.6
44.4
34.1
4.0
0.4
15.6
Devan Downey
PG
51.3
45.8
1.6
16.8
23.4
31.5
34.6
4.5
0.0
9.3
Courtney Fortson
PG
48.3
40.7
4.7
24.2
24.2
50.9
35.4
2.3
0.5
12.8
Derrick Caracter
PF
59.8
57.4
11
22.2
9.0
45.5
27.5
2.0
3.6
21.7
Sherron Collins
PG/SG
55.8
50.6
0.8
17.6
24.3
31.7
23.3
1.8
0.1
5.6
Ryan Thompson
SG
55.5
47.9
4.0
14.1
16.1
52.4
24.0
1.8
0.9
11.1
Jeremy Lin
PG
62.6
57.1
3.4
21.2
30.9
68.2
26.8
4.4
3.6
12.9
Justin Mason
PG
45.0
42.9
4.2
21.6
14.2
49.5
12.8
2.5
1.4
6.7
Elijah Millsap
SG
51.5
45.8
9.5
21.6
13.5
56.4
29.9
3.0
1.0
24.5
Marquis Gilstrap
SF
52.9
49.3
9.4
19.2
9.0
43.8
25.3
1.6
2.8
21.6
Landry Fields
SG/SF
56.1
51.9
6.7
13.6
19.5
50.8
31.0
2.6
2.2
20.6
Tyler Smith
SG/SF
61.7
57.3
5.5
13.5
22.9
80.4
19.8
2.8
1.1
14.0
Matt Bouldin
SG
58.9
52.8
1.5
16.9
21.4
40.4
21.6
2.2
0.5
12.4
Scottie Reynolds
PG
47.6
54.4
1.9
18.2
21.8
51.5
26.5
2.8
0.4
7.8
Omar Samhan
C
58.9
55.2
13.7
12.7
7.1
43.1
30.6
0.8
7.9
24.5
Andrew Ogilvy
C
57.9
50.8
10.4
16.2
8.2
77.4
28.5
2.5
6.0
18.5
Tommy Mason-Griffin
PG
53.1
49.3
1.5
19.7
28.9
24.6
23.4
1.4
0.0
7.8
Magnum Rolle
PF/C
54.1
51.3
13.1
15.7
5.8
38.3
24.1
1.4
6.9
18.2
Jerome Randle
PG
61.3
55.6
1.4
22.2
23.7
32.3
26.6
1.2
0.0
5.5
In case it’s unclear, the stats are as follows (from left to right): true shooting percentage (TS%), effective field goal percentage (eFG%), offensive rebounding rate (ORB%), turnover rate (TOV%), assist rate (AST%), free throw rate (FTR), usage (USG%), steal rate (STL%), block rate (BLK%), and defensive rebounding rate (DRB%).
UPDATE (5:04 PM CST): For the sake of convenience, I’ll be updating this post with periodic pre-draft chatter.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports: “If Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez slips out of tirst round, don’t expect the guard to get past Miami with 32nd pick, league executives say.”
Sam Amick, NBA FanHouse: “Dallas is trying to buy its way into the first round, according to a league source. The Mavs have only the 50th pick overall.”
UPDATE (7:22 PM CST):
Per Jeff Caplan of ESPN Dallas, the Mavs received some good offers for Rodrigue Beaubois, but they weren’t persuasive enough: “‘We’ve had some unusually attractive offers for Roddy,’ Nelson said. But, nothing that would change the Mavs’ stance. ‘Roddy’s not going anywhere,’ Nelson said.”
UPDATE (8:00 PM CST):
A nice little video from the Mavs’ official site showing off the pre-draft War Room.
UPDATE (9:00 CST):
Looks like the Mavs may have made their way into the first round after all. According to Marc Stein, the Memphis Grizzlies selected South Florida’s Dominique Jones with the 25th pick for the Mavs, who bought the pick. Check out his Draft Express profile here.
DePaul Junior
6’10”, 240 lbs
Birthday unknown (seriously)
Power forward/center
Projection: Second rounder/undrafted
Mac is a bit more talented than the “project center” archetype suggests, but ultimately we’re dealing with something in the same genus. If the Mavs are willing to invest time, coaching, and energy in Koshwal, he could eventually become something of a player. If not, Koshwal is the type of big body that could float around the periphery of the league for quite some time, riding unguaranteed contracts, ten-days, and summer league teams as a practice body for hire.
Koshwal put together a relatively decent basketball portfolio in college, which is the only thing to suggest he could be something more than a 6’10” body. Obviously his height gave him an advantage at DePaul that he he won’t have the benefit of in the NBA, but his size does mean that he can try to hang with other pro bigs. He’s not the strongest, the fastest, the most athletic, or the most skilled, but Mac could end up being “Opposing Center #247.” It’s not a glorious life, and it typically leads to little more than a bare bones Wikipedia page to signify his existence. That’s still better than most, even if Koshwal never plays a minute of meaningful NBA action.
Ultimately, Koshwal looks like filler. He didn’t fake his way through his collegiate production, and considering just how bad DePaul has been, the numbers are honestly pretty impressive. He just doesn’t have one skill that could make him an NBA commodity, nor has he shown the potential to even be a solid NBA reserve. If the Mavs are looking for someone to potentially use up some minutes in the near future, they can do better. If they’re looking for a player to develop down the road, they can still probably do better. Mac may be a nice “just in case” guy to have floating around at the end of the bench or on the Legends, but aside from emergency utility, he’s not a particularly notable prospect.
2009-2010 Traditional Per Game and Per 40 Minute Stats:
PTS
REB
AST
TO
STL/BLK
FG%
3FG%
Per Game
16.1
10.1
2.0
3.2
1.8/0.9
.544
---
Per 40
18.5
11.5
3.3
3.7
2.1/1.0
---
---
2009-2010 Per Possession Stats (Offense):
TS%
eFG%
ORB%
TO%
AST%
FTR
USG%
55.0
534.0
11.9
20.7
15.3
48.2
28.1
2009-2010 Per Possession Stats (Defense):
STL%
BLK%
DRB%
3.3
2.8
20.9
Other People:
Joe Treutlein, Draft Express: “One area where Koshwal does excel is the glass, especially the offensive end, where he pulls in 4.3 offensive boards per game. Koshwal has a relentless motor on the glass and has no problem throwing his body around, as we’ve previously documented. This is probably the most attractive part of his profile in fact when projecting him to the NBA level, as players of his nature aren’t always that easy to find, at least not for the minimum. Defensively, Koshwal has a pretty upright stance on the perimeter, and doesn’t seem to put in full effort moving his feet, which probably makes his lateral quickness look worse than it could be. On pick-and-rolls, he looks completely out of sorts, usually making peculiar decisions and not really putting in full effort most of the time. In the post, he doesn’t get great leverage and his fundamentals could probably use a little work, but he does put in a better effort level here. On the weakside, he really is not much of a threat blocking shots due to his lack of explosiveness, but he does show a terrific ability to anticipate post-entry passes and come up with steals.”
Footnote:
Mac is originally from Sudan, but he attended Boys to Men Math and English Academy in Chicago. Boys. To. Men.
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