What Warriors can learn from Mavs’ roster construction after ’22 WCF originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
As Anthony Edwards danced across the court and said goodbye to the Denver Nuggets fans on Sunday night, Tim Connelly’s grand plan was complete. The Minnesota Timberwolves’ ultimate goal still requires eight wins, but if they were to ever have a shot at lifting the Larry O’Brien Trophy, Connelly knew the Wolves would first have to work their way to beating Denver to reach the mountain top.
Pieces will continue to be written and several deep dives will be made in the coming days about how Connelly, the Timberwolves’ president of basketball operations, spent nearly a decade building the Nuggets, only to leave just before they got their won their first NBA championship and then create a team to beat the champions in these Timberwolves.
Minnesota was created with one team in mind: Connelly’s former employers. The first team on the Warriors’ path to the title in 2022 failed to repeat as champions and exited in the second round. The second team to draft the Warriors two years ago, the Memphis Grizzlies, saw a losing season and is currently preparing for the No. 9 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. But the third and final Western Conference roadblock the Warriors had to clear before reaching the NBA Finals is back in the conference finals for the second time in three years.
The Dallas Mavericks have changed exponentially since the Warriors needed five games to end their Finals bid two seasons ago, with a handful of moves Golden State can learn from.
First, let’s not forget the Mavs’ starting five from Game 5 of the 2022 conference finals.
Luka Dončić had an inefficient near triple-double of 28 points, nine rebounds and six assists. Of course he’s still there. Dwight Powell, Dallas’ starting center at the time, had two points and two rebounds. He’s still there, but started just nine games this season and played just under 15 minutes in the playoffs this year with five DNPs (Did Not Play).
Dorian Finney-Smith scored 13 points in almost 40 minutes. He now plays for the Brooklyn Nets and averaged the fewest minutes per game since the 2018-19 season. Reggie Bullock played nearly 38 minutes and scored six points. He played 44 games for the Houston Rockets this season and averaged a paltry 2.2 points in 9.5 minutes per game.
Sure, Jalen Brunson was Dončić’s defensive partner in those conference finals. Not this Jalen Brunson does. Brunson scored 10 points on 3-for-10 shooting in that loss to the Warriors, his final game as a Mav. Even when he was underrated and underutilized in Dallas, no one could have predicted that an All-NBA player for the New York Knicks would finish fifth in the MVP voting.
Now Dončić’s defensive partner is a drama-free version of Kyrie Irving, who at age 32 has perfectly settled into his role as a second option. That’s the first avenue the Warriors will have to explore this season. Where and how can they find the Mavericks’ next Irving, or their own next Andrew Wiggins from two years ago?
In a much longer offseason than usual, names like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Paul George and more will be tossed around as possible future Warriors. That’s all nice and makes for a conversation with so much empty space to cover, but the Warriors’ most likely path to pairing someone with Steph Curry is another reclamation project on the trade market.
Wiggins and Irving are different players and different people. Irving’s stock was at an all-time low for a handful of concerning off-court reasons when the Mavericks acquired him from the Nets last year before the trade deadline for Finney-Smith, Spencer Dinwiddie and three draft picks. The Warriors were able to acquire Wiggins low after years of him failing to live up to expectations as a former No. 1 overall draft pick, flipping D’Angelo Russell for the second-best player on a title team and a pick that became Jonathan Kuminga. .
Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy has his work cut out for him this season and will likely have to make creative use of Chris Paul’s $30 million non-guaranteed contract to find Golden State’s next version of a 2022 Wiggins. And Wiggins could be involved in that deal as well. Possibly even Kuminga, Moses Moody or another asset to do this.
The highest plus/minus by a Mavericks starter as they gave the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder an early exit on Saturday belonged to Derrick Jones Jr., who was a plus-18 in 40 minutes with 22 points on 6-of-13 shooting to shoot . The Mavericks signed Jones to a one-year league minimum contract as their latest addition to the roster on August 18. Just like Otto Porter Jr. and Gary Payton II were for the Warriors two years ago, Jones has been an integral part of the Mavericks’ success. cheap.
Check back for the winners and losers articles after the trade deadline. Almost nowhere will you find the Mavericks as winners, and yet hindsight shows they easily won the deadline when Dallas added both PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford in separate trades on February 8. How often does one of the bottom four teams find two impact starters? on the deadline? Dallas did that by sending Richaun Holmes and a compensation offer to the Washington Wizards for Gafford, as well as Grant Williams and Seth Curry to the Charlotte Hornets, along with a 2027 first-round pick with light protection, to acquire Washington.
In Games 2, 3 and 4 of the conference semifinals, Washington was Dallas’ leading scorer. He averaged 14.3 points and 6.8 rebounds in the playoffs while shooting 40.7 percent from three. Gafford averaged a career-high 11.2 points in the regular season after the trade, and only averaged 11.0 points and 7.5 rebounds against OKC. His backup, rookie Dereck Lively II, whom the Mavs took at No. 12 in last year’s draft, averaged 11.5 points, 12.5 rebounds and a plus-24 in Dallas’ last two wins.
The Mavs were the No. 8 seed, not even a playoff team, at 29-23 when they traded for Gafford and Washington. Their final regular season record of 50-32 had them seeded No. 5, five spots ahead of the Warriors, despite winning only four more games than them. Would the Warriors have been a 50-win team if they added Gafford and Washington at the deadline? Could they possibly still be playing?
Both questions have real life to them. The conference finals will be played by a No. 1 seed, No. 3 seed, No. 5 seed and No. 6 seed.
The Wolves’ rise and roster construction deserves the spotlight. How the Mavericks are built to reach the West finals two years after losing to the Warriors can’t be ignored by anyone, including Golden State.
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