The trade deadline has come and gone. Last Thursday, I found myself glued to my phone as Shams Charania and Adrian Wojnarowski battled to be the first to report on every major deal. As the day went on, I anxiously awaited the news that the Minnesota Timberwolves had made some sort of big splash. There were murmurs that Minnesota’s brass was in talks with the Boston Celtics to acquire Marcus Smart, but those rumors failed to come to fruition. According to Jon Krawczynski at The Athletic, the Wolves were close to swinging a deal for Montrezl Harrell. “Internal debate” and a desire to maintain good chemistry brought those discussions to a halt and Harrell found himself in Charlotte.
As the Wolves stood pat, much of the Western Conference shook things up. We saw the Sacramento Kings and the New Orleans Pelicans make big splashes in hopes of making a late-season push to the play-in. Conversely, the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz decided to retool and take a shot at improving their odds to make it out of the first round of the playoffs. But how does all this movement in the West affect the Wolves?
Last Wednesday, the Timberwolves felt the impact of the trade deadline in the form of Domantas Sabonis. Sabonis has averaged 22.2 points, 14.6 rebounds, and 7 assists over his last four games against the Wolves. He has officially unlocked his Wolves killer badge with those numbers, joining the pantheon with Evan Fournier and Dillon Brooks. The good news is that Minnesota won’t see Sacramento again this season. But in Sabonis’ first two games in Sactown, the Kings have an eye-popping 127.7 offensive rating. Early signs point to the Kings pushing toward the play-in tournament. If that’s the case, Minnesota could end up in a win-or-go-home game against Sacramento and face another monster game from Sabonis.
The race for the play-in got even more intense when the New Orleans Pelicans swung a deal for CJ McCollum. McCollum adds an extra scoring punch to the Pelicans, who have found themselves sitting just outside the play-in mix after starting the season 1-12. The Pelicans have been a tough match for the Wolves all season long. Jonas Valanciunas and his physical brand of basketball have been a nuisance for Karl-Anthony Towns. The Wolves have had some slugfests against the Pelicans. Adding CJ to the mix only makes them a more dangerous opponent.
Overall, the play-in competition has gotten much stiffer. I feel it’s imperative that the Wolves move out of the 7th seed and clinch a playoff spot. The moves that the Dallas Mavericks made may have the biggest impact on their chances. Dallas cut bait on Kristaps Porzingis, trading him to Washington for Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans.
I can understand why the Mavs wanted to move on from Porzingis. He’s shooting a career-low 28% from beyond the arc this season and is a perpetual injury risk. To boot, he and Luka Doncic allegedly have had personal beef that may have never been resolved. Any way you slice it, the Porzingis that they hoped they were getting when they traded for him in 2019 never showed up, and the Mavs thought it best to move on.
But.
Dinwiddie and Bertans? Right away that seems like a major downgrade. I’m a believer that the team that got the best player won the trade, which means that Dallas unequivocally lost this trade. If Dinwiddie is going to be the Robin to Luka’s Batman, the Mavericks have put themselves in a much worse position this year.
Dinwiddie is coming off of an ACL injury this season and hasn’t looked quite like the Dinwiddie we saw in the 2019-20 season when he was scoring 20 points per game. The Mavericks hope that he can recapture some of the magic from that season once he shakes some of the rust off. But, even then, Dinwiddie was at his best with the ball in his hands. According to NBA.com’s tracking data, he took nearly 85% of his shots off the dribble that year. The Mavs could definitely benefit from having another player who can create off the dribble when Doncic sits, though I find it hard to imagine that Jason Kidd will want to take the ball out of Luka’s hands to accommodate Dinwiddie.
Doncic is good enough to carry a team, of course. He is one of the rare players who is so impactful on the game that odds are he’s dragging that team to the playoffs, even if he’s surrounded by replacement-level players. As flawed as he is, Porzingis was a quality basketball fit next to Luka. Theoretically, he can space the floor at a high level. Even with his low 3-point percentage this season, the threat of his shot is enough to stretch a defense to let Luka work. Not only does Porzingis space the floor, but he’s also a shooting threat from deep range which makes him even more dangerous.
Kirk Goldsberry wrote about the importance of deep spacing in his book Sprawlball. In a section on the 2016-17 Houston Rockets, he writes:
“[The Rockets] were placing launchers like Eric Gordon and [Ryan] Anderson 27 or 28 feet from the rim, happy to trade a percentage point or two in shooting efficiency associated with slightly longer threes for upticks in the three-point chances, wider pick-and-roll corridors for [James] Harden, and fewer closeouts by defenders. They weren’t just expanding the scoring area their opponents would have to defend but also exacerbating the already dangerous pick-your-poison dilemma for their defenders: either stick close to the perimeter shooters and let Harden attack the paint without help, or help on Harden and allow open threes all night.”
Harden is an excellent analog for Luka Doncic. Surround someone with his ability to operate out of the pick-and-roll with high-level shooting and wish the defense good luck trying to stop his attack. But unlike Ryan Anderson, Porzingis provides a threat at both ends of the floor. His defensive potential is through the roof. Porzingis is a menace at the rim at times, using his incredible length to block and contest shots. But sometimes, his lack of awareness and strength make him look like a hollow shell of the defender that he is capable of being.
With Bertans, the Mavs have replaced the deep shooting threat that Porzingis provided. But they’ve exchanged a 7’3” behemoth with a rather run-of-the-mill 6’10” floor spacer who provides little fortification on the defensive end. Whereas Harden had Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson to space the floor for him in 2017, Luka will have Bertans and Dinwiddie.
The Wolves are within spitting distance of the Mavericks, just three games back. The Nuggets sit in the 6th seed as Nikola Jokic continues to build his case to win back-to-back MVP awards. If Dallas falters, the final playoff berth could be Minnesota’s for the taking.
