Luka Doncic has quickly emerged as one of the young faces of the NBA in his rookie season in Dallas. The Slovenian star has adapted to the NBA game almost immediately and its clear the Mavs are already handing him the keys as the team’s primary ball-handler.
Doncic’s 26.7 usage rate is the second highest on the team, only to J.J. Barea who runs the show for the second unit and is doing so at an exceptional level this season. With Doncic steadily taking on a greater role on the ball, it’s left some to wonder about their lottery pick from 2017, Dennis Smith Jr., and what his role can be in Dallas.
The Doncic-Smith pairing has not fared well this season, as the two haven’t been able to figure out how to make things work when both are on the floor. Smith’s shooting has improved this season, but he’s still not a great shooter and as such isn’t a great off-ball threat around Doncic. Beyond that, for whatever reason they can’t figure out how to share touches while keeping the offense in rhythm. The Mavs’ offense plummets from its typical 106.6 offensive rating to 100.5 when Doncic and Smith share the floor together and he is the only one of eight teammates Doncic has played more than 100 minutes with this season without a 105 offensive rating or above when on the court together.
While the Mavs clearly liked Smith in the 2017 draft and may still see a future for him, there are questions about how effective he can be next to Doncic. It doesn’t seem like it’s an issue of Doncic being incapable of playing with another ball-handler, as his highest offensive rating comes when paired with J.J. Barea and his third-highest is with Jalen Brunson on the floor with him. It simply seems to be an incompatibility between the two recent lottery picks.
Given what the Mavs gave up to take Doncic and Doncic appearing to be the prohibitively better player right now, Smith appears to be headed for an eventual departure from Dallas. The question on everyone’s mind is whether Dallas will make a move this year or not with Smith, as Marc Stein of the New York Times notes in his latest newsletter that rival executives are closely monitoring Smith’s availability, even though the Mavs insist they aren’t shopping him.
The instant emergence of the Dallas rookie Luka Doncic, combined with longstanding skepticism about Smith’s ability to flourish alongside Doncic in an off-the-ball capacity, has spawned the expectation among many executives that Smith will eventually be moved.
Smith has played in only three of Dallas’s 12 December games thus far due to a wrist injury. But 2017’s No. 9 overall pick is bound to attract interest — along with the veteran swingman Wes Matthews in the final year of his contract — if (when?) the ever-active Mavericks decide it’s time to reconfigure the roster they’re already plotting to build around Doncic.
ESPN’s Tim MacMahon backed up this report, noting that he’s heard the Mavs have at least gauged the interest from some other teams about Smith.
.@TheSteinLine mentions expectation among execs around league that Dennis Smith Jr. will eventually be moved. Mavs tell Steiny that they aren't shopping Smith, but that's semantics. Execs from other teams tell me that Mavs are at least gauging market for their 2017 lotto pick. https://t.co/AVYevoyif0
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) December 24, 2018
It’s not a tremendous surprise that this would happen, and for rebuilding teams this situation can often pop up after multiple visits to the lottery. Teams without a set star at a particular position will take swings at the best player available, no matter the position, and hope one of them sticks. In this case, it seems that will be Doncic over Smith, but in Philadelphia we saw Joel Embiid outlast Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel in a battle for frontcourt minutes.
Smith has been improved this year from his rookie season, particularly in being far more efficient scoring the ball both inside and outside, and there’s reason to believe he can continue developing into a quality point guard and be a starter in the league. However, Doncic’s ceiling certainly appears higher and if push comes to shove, Smith will be the one shipped out. It’s possible the Mavs keep trying to make it work with their two young guards for the remainder of the year and into next season, but if the results remain the same it wouldn’t be a shock to see Smith dealt to a team more in need of point guard assistance.
