The Athletic's Mavericks beat writer Tim Cato joined the GBag Nation after the frenzy of free agency to discuss how much better the Mavs are now than when their season ended in Boston, why Derrick Jones Jr. chose to move on to the Clippers, and more!
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00:00How much better are the Mavs than when the finals ended?
00:19I think their ceiling is higher.
00:21And I think that there are, you know, good questions, curiosities that we're going to
00:26find out about this team in the regular season.
00:29You know, I don't want to gloss over the loss of Derrick Jones Jr.
00:33It makes the team different.
00:35But I think we saw very clearly in the finals, you know, Dallas needed shooting.
00:40And they needed more depth.
00:42And it is impossible to look at this new-look roster and, you know, not see that it's deeper.
00:48And it has shooters.
00:49It has one of the best shooters to ever, you know, play this sport.
00:53And so, yeah, I think this team's ceiling is higher.
00:56I think there's a chance that, a good chance, that this is all going to come together and
01:01work really well.
01:02And that this is going to be an improved version of a team that just went to the finals last
01:08year.
01:09And that's obviously a great spot for Dallas to be in.
01:13Were they able to get better shooting without losing the defense that Derrick Jones Jr.
01:18provided with all the moves together?
01:21It's going to look different.
01:22I mean, the thing that, you know, I think we were all so impressed by Derrick Jones
01:26Jr.
01:27And, you know, by the, you know, as the regular season went on, you know, I just, I didn't
01:33realize he was that good.
01:34I knew he was good.
01:36He's someone who I had on my all-defense shortlist.
01:39You know, so not a top-10 defender in the NBA, but, you know, I thought he had a legitimate,
01:47you know, case to be a top-20 guy.
01:49You know, a top-10, you know, wing defender, perimeter defender, and it's, you know, that's
01:55what you lose.
01:56You can only put so much, you know, like you can, they have replaced him with good defenders,
02:02but they haven't replaced him with great defenders.
02:05And I do think that absence is going to be felt a little bit.
02:08I do think that, you know, how the team closes games, you know, which players are able to
02:15step up and, you know, be the defenders for players like, let's say, Tyrese Maxey and,
02:20you know, and Ja Morant.
02:22You know, I think that's something that we need to see in the regular season, whether
02:26it's, you know, Najee Marshall, whether it's Quinton Grimes, whether Kyrie is going to
02:30be able to, you know, step up to that challenge throughout the regular season.
02:35Something that Jones, you know, handled real capably, those type players last season.
02:40But yeah, they have options.
02:42They absolutely have options in depth and ways to manage this.
02:46It's just a matter of how they go about doing it.