Is this the time right for the Dallas Mavericks to move on from Dennis Smith Jr.? And should teams leap at the chance to acquire one of the most touted point guards from the 2017 draft?
ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski and Tim MacMahon reported Monday that the Mavericks are escalating trade talks involving Smith, the No. 9 overall pick in 2017. That's no surprise given the questionable fit between Smith and this year's heralded Dallas rookie, Luka Doncic, who has taken over lead ballhandling duties as he has emerged as the heavy favorite for Rookie of the Year.
With Doncic and Smith having played 28 games together, have the Mavericks had enough time for proper evaluation? And is there an opportunity for another team to buy low on Smith? Let's take a look at the answers to those questions.
Can Doncic and Smith coexist?
As MacMahon and Wojnarowski suggested, the Mavericks' aggressive timetable for dealing Smith probably stems in part from the fact that Dallas has been more successful offensively with other point guards playing alongside Doncic. Though J.J. Barea is no longer an option after he suffered a season-ending Achilles rupture last Friday, the Mavericks have also scored better when Doncic has played with rookie second-round pick Jalen Brunson (107.4 points per 100 possessions, according to NBA Advanced Stats) than when Doncic has played with Smith (101.4 points per 100 possessions).
It's interesting to note that Doncic has been a more effective scorer when he has spent more time off the ball alongside Smith. Per NBA Advanced Stats, his usage rate is slightly higher when he plays with Smith (26.9 percent of the Mavericks' plays versus 26.6 percent without him), and Doncic also scores more efficiently (.569 true shooting percentage versus .559).
Though Doncic is predictably a more effective playmaker when Smith sits (he assists on 28 percent of teammates' field goals, up from 24 percent with Smith), Doncic's weaker scoring suggests random variation is the cause of the offensive improvement with Smith on the bench.
Further investigation reveals that fellow starters Harrison Barnes and Wesley Matthews are each shooting 35 percent on 3s when they play with both Doncic and Smith, as compared to 39 and 42 percent, respectively, when they play with Doncic and Brunson. Using Second Spectrum tracking, we can look at Dallas' shot quality with each of the two backcourts.
The Mavericks' quantified shot quality (qSQ, which measures the expected effective field goal percentage for an average shooter based on the location, the type of shot and the distance of nearby defenders) goes down from 53.1 percent with Doncic and Smith to 52.4 percent with Doncic and Brunson. Dallas' quantified shot probability (qSP, which also aims to factor in the ability of the shooter) is a bit better with Doncic next to Brunson rather than Smith (51.5 percent versus 51.1 percent), but either way, it's clear that the differences we've seen in the Mavericks' offense this season are products of a small sample size.
This year's results also don't suggest that Smith has been hampered by playing with Doncic. He has barely played without Doncic alongside him (fewer than 100 minutes this season), and a comparison to Smith's rookie campaign shows his shooting has improved this season from both inside (44 percent to 48 percent) and outside (31 percent to 37 percent) of the arc. The one concern is that Smith's turnovers haven't gone down while his assists predictably have, but there's no reason to think Doncic has hurt Smith's development.
It's possible that Dallas is overreacting to a small sample of games with Smith sidelined due to injury. Given Rick Carlisle's fondness for using multiple point guards, however, the more interesting scenario is that Doncic-Smith fit issues are a cover for a decision the Mavericks would have made on Smith either way. That possibility should be a concern for teams interested in dealing for Smith.
Does Dallas know something other teams don't?
The concept of the "second draft," popularized by my ESPN predecessor John Hollinger, remains highly valued by teams. Given the importance of the situation into which a player is drafted, the theory goes, it's good to buy low on high draft picks no longer wanted by their original teams. In practice, however, the second draft has rarely worked well with players dealt so quickly. Take a look at top-10 picks since 2012 who have been traded by their original teams (that is, the first team for which they played a game) before the conclusion of their second seasons:
That's not a group Smith ideally wants to join. Though these players were traded for varying amounts of value, I'd say only Hield was worth it for his second team. Not only did the teams trading recent draft picks probably know more about these players' limitations, but large rookie contracts for top picks meant these players were quickly overpaid. (For that reason, the second-draft concept works better when players become free agents, like the New York Knicks signing Vonleh for the veteran's minimum this season.)
At the same time, none of those players performed as well relative to expectations as Smith did as a rookie. All but Hield played primarily off the bench; Smith started all 69 games he played and rated on a per-minute basis almost exactly as well as my projections for him -- which put Smith fourth overall entering the draft, five spots ahead of where he was taken.
Given the long development curve that's typical for point guards, there is still a good chance Smith will become a productive starter. I'd compare him to D'Angelo Russell of the Brooklyn Nets, traded by the L.A. Lakers after his second season with similar fit concerns. (The Lakers were expecting to take a point guard with the No. 2 overall pick, eventually used on Lonzo Ball.) It has taken Russell until his fourth NBA season to improve his playmaking and lift his efficiency to passable levels. (Smith is already a more efficient scorer than Russell, though that's in part due to 3-point accuracy that may not be sustainable for Smith.) Now, Russell has emerged as a driving force in Brooklyn's surprising playoff push.
As always, whether a team should deal depends on the asking price. A high lottery pick would be too much to pay for Smith given the possibility that he won't be a good NBA player until late in his rookie contract. But for a team that is starved for shot creation, like the Orlando Magic, Smith offers a better chance of productive point guard play than waiting around for a rookie drafted this June. Despite my concerns about what it means if the Mavericks are moving on so fast, I'd take the gamble on Smith.