At the deadline, in a three-team deal, the Denver Nuggets ended up with Devin Harris, the New York Knicks with Emmanuel Mudiay and the Dallas Mavericks with Doug McDermott. I love this trade. It’s a trade about hope.
Consider this: McDermott was the 11th pick in the draft just four years ago and Mudiay was the 7th pick just three years gone. And yet the Mavericks, who gave up a 35-year-old backup PG (love you, Devin) were the only team that didn’t have to part with a second-rounder. So it’s about hope — hope that McDermott and Mudiay can turn it around before it’s too late — but it’s about qualified hope.
Let’s start with Mudiay. If you’re like me, your initial thought was: this is literally crazy. How could the Knicks, of all teams, want another young point guard who is sometimes known for his defense but is a horribly inefficient scorer. When you look at what Frank Ntilikina has done this year, which is to say score five points a game on 32.6 percent shooting, who says, you know what we need, a guy whose career average is 11 points on 37.5 percent shooting?
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But then again, why not? Ntilikina’s reception reminds me a great deal of Mudiay’s when he got to the league, a guy whose basketball skills seemed so evident but rarely enough translated into on-court production. Since Mudiay so far hasn’t turned into an impact player, it’s quite clear through this lens that Ntilikina might not either. So why not double your odds? Especially when you got nothing to play for.
As for the Mavericks, this is quite clearly going to go one of two ways. McDermott might well go the way of Nerlens Noel, or even Josh McRoberts, as guys with some talent who the Mavs always made noises about playing, and seemed to fit some of their needs, who never actually saw the court. McBuckets is on his fourth team in two years (CHI, OKC, NYK, DAL), and all of them seemed like they could use him, but none of them ever got much traction.
On the other hand, McDermott could follow Seth Curry’s path. In 2015-16, his last with the Kings, Curry (age 25) played around 16 minutes a game and scored 6.8 points on .455/.450/.833 shooting. This year, in 21.7 minutes, McDermott (age 26) has averaged 7.2 points on .460/.387/.755 shooting. Okay, he’s not a better 3-point shooter than any Curry, but his career average is an excellent 39.2 percent from the arc and the effective field goal percentages are about the same.
One year later, as a Maverick, Seth was scoring 12.8 points on .481/.425/.850 shooting and seemed poised to do a lot more before being sidelined with a stress fracture this season. Could McDermott make a similar leap at roughly the same age? I ask you.
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Nobody loses on this deal, that’s the best part of it. The Mavericks were not in a position to benefit from the services of a veteran player, the Nuggets, with Jamal Murray, didn’t need Mudiay any more and the Knicks might as well do something rather than nothing. Of course, all of that also means this deal might not do anything for anybody, but that’s part of the fun, too.