Relying On The D.E.N.N.I.S. System

For the first time under the stewardship of Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks are rebuilding. He said as much while sitting in on a Summer League broadcast in July of 2017. "We're rebuilding. Right? Given where we are, given where the Warriors are and what's happening in the Western Conference, it kind of sealed what we have to do."

Cuban was at that Summer League game to watch the player taken higher than any Mavericks draft pick since Robert Traylor was picked sixth in 1998 (Traylor, of course, was traded on draft day for Dirk Nowitzki. Devin Harris was drafted fifth in 2004 by the Wizards and subsequently acquired by Dallas). Dennis Smith Jr. was selected ninth overall, and several mocks before his one season of college hoops projected him as a top three pick.

Despite smokescreens that seemed to indicate Dallas preferred Belgian guard Frank Ntilikina, the Mavericks apparently wanted Smith Jr. all along. Rick Carlisle was as effusive with his praise and excitement regarding a young player as he’d ever been. “There was an uproarious applause in there, it was thunderous,” Carlisle said of the war room. When asked about where Smith Jr. ranked in relation to the three point guards taken ahead of him, Carlisle said: “I thought he was as good as any of them.” Frankly, it was shocking for anyone who follows Carlisle’s statements closely, particularly about unproven players.

The bar had been set very high, but the brain trust wouldn’t have engaged in that sort of hype if they didn’t think the then-19-year-old Smith Jr. could handle it. They wanted him to understand something very clearly: we’re counting on you to be elite.

The Mavericks were in desperate need of dynamic young talent, of a glimmer of post-Dirk hope. That thirst might result in some fans and media over-inflating Smith’s early accomplishments and projecting an unattainable ceiling. Or, he might really be the star Dallas expected him to be, which would expedite the Mavericks’ rebuilding process tremendously.

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To have a prayer at contending in the NBA, a team needs two stars. Most of the time, wrangling two stars takes several draft misses, or stashing away enough picks to trade them for a star from another team (which then turns those picks into their own draft misses). After years of horrible luck in free agency, have the Mavericks already found one potential star in Smith Jr.? Let’s take a group of star point guards’ rookie seasons and see how he stacks up.

Player	Season	Age	MP
Kyrie Irving	2011-12	19	30.5
Damian Lillard	2012-13	22	38.6
Dennis Smith	2017-18	20	29.7
Kemba Walker	2011-12	21	27.2
John Wall	2010-11	20	37.8
Russell Westbrook	2008-09	20	32.5

This group is comprised of super-athletic point guards that make their living attacking. It's probably unreasonable to expect DSJ to ever shoot the long ball like Harden or Curry , so they're not in our comps pool. It quickly jumps out that Smith Jr. is playing the fewest minutes outside of Walker's rookie year. However, when DSJ is removed from the sample, the average MPG is 33.3, so he's not too far off of the pace. He's clocking the 8th-most MPG of all rookies this season, so even though Carlisle has at time been judicious with crunch time exposure and made the kid earn it a bit, he's getting his time.

Since there is a playing time discrepancy, we'll use Per 36 Minutes numbers to compare production statistics.

Player	Age	FGA	EFG%	3PA	3P%	FTA	FT%	REB	AST	STL	TOV	USG	PTS
K. Irving	19	17.3	51.7	4.2	0.399	4.5	0.872	4.4	6.4	1.2	3.7	28.70	21.8
D. Lillard	22	14.6	50.1	5.7	0.368	3.6	0.844	2.9	6	0.8	2.8	24.20	17.8
D. Smith	20	17.9	44.1	5.9	0.305	3.5	0.699	4.6	5.9	1.3	3.4	28.80	18.2
K. Walker	21	15.4	41.1	4.5	0.305	4.3	0.789	4.7	5.8	1.2	2.4	25.20	16.1
J. Wall	20	13.4	42.7	1.6	0.296	5.4	0.766	4.4	7.9	1.7	3.6	23.80	15.6
R. Westbrook	20	14.8	41.4	1.7	0.271	5.8	0.815	5.4	5.9	1.5	3.7	25.80	16.9

Based on rookie season comps, it's not at all crazy to group Smith Jr. in with these players. Taken in aggregate, he's roughly middle of the pack here. Each of these players have their issues, but if DSJ ends up progressing to the point that this is the caliber of player he's mentioned among, he will be an absolute win for the Mavs front office, and the club's rebuild will be expedited. So, the question becomes, where does he need to improve to ensure that this happens? What do we see in his skillet that makes this progression seem likely, and what gives us pause?

If I had to pick one area from this chart that causes the most concern, it would be Smith Jr.’s inability to get to the line and convert. The simplest way for players with this athleticism to earn free throws is through attacking the rim. Guards with elite burst and bounce have been the best athletes on the floor for their entire lives, and suddenly the defender meeting them at the rim knows how to neutralize that explosiveness without fouling. To open up the rest of their offensive attack, this group of point guards must be able to drive and draw calls. Let's compare Smith Jr.'s rookie season to his hopeful company's 2017-18 seasons.

2017-18	DRIVES/GM		FTA/DRIVE/GM	PTS/DRIVE/GM	FTA/DRIVE
R. Westbrook	19		2.3	8.4	0.121
J. Wall	15.5		2.5	7.5	0.161
D. Smith	12.6		1.0	5.0	0.079
D. Lillard	12.3		2.4	7.4	0.195
K. Walker	11.8		1.8	6.4	0.152
K. Irving	11.6		1.4	7.9	0.120

Really, there is no comparison. Smith Jr. is driving more than Lillard or Walker, but getting half as many FTs per drive and subsequently, half as many points out of his drives. Since it's unlikely DSJ ever develops into a deadly threat from deep, it's imperative that he is able to draw contact at the rim and pile up production that way. Per cleaningtheglass.com, he is being fouled on just 8.1% of his shot attempts, putting him in the 52nd percentile of that category (relative to players CTG classifies as "combo guards. "). For a player who lives at the rim, that won't cut it.

2017-18	SFLD %	SFLD PERCENTILE
Russell Westbrook	13.8	92
John Wall	14.6	96
Dennis Smith Jr.	8.0	49
Damian Lillard	12.3	80
Kemba Walker	10/8	73
Kyrie Irving	8.9	47

Too often, it appears that when Smith Jr. heads to the rim, he doesn't have much of a plan. When the paint defender meets him, he has to be able to draw contact, score with a secondary move, or deliver a lob. The lobs are a work in progress:

Other times, he is able to use his quickness to get a step on a defender, but then allows them to recover because he veers away from the rim and avoids contact:

To be fair, he's getting the line more as the season has progressed, averaging 2.2 FTA per game in his first 30 contests and 3.6 per in the second 30. And sure, some of it is a rookie having to earn the ability to get a whistle (as absurd and arcane as that notion may be). But if you look at our table of comps for DSJ, it's clear that the ability to turn burst into freebies is the area he has to improve upon the most.

There is one more area of development I'd like to focus on to highlight why I'm confident this kid is going to be a star. The Mavericks are not near as pick-and-roll (or pop) heavy of a team as they have been in years past. This is largely because Harrison Barnes and Wesley Matthews rely so much on isolation than players like Monta Ellis or Jason Terry, coupled with the fact Dirk is playing less. But the fact remains, for an NBA offense to be truly successful, it needs guards that can kill in the pick-and-roll. Ideally, you want two of these players, so that when help defense shuts down the first action, the ball can be swung weak side for another screen that recovery can't cover. Smith Jr. was a very patient, effective PNR player at NC State. But as we've already seen, he has some adjusting to do to the length and size of NBA defenders. How is he faring on pick and roll plays thus far?

Per Synergy Sports, in PNR situation where the defense commits to Smith Jr. and he has to pass out (usually to the rolling big or a kick out to the corner), the Mavs are .98 PPP, ranking in the 74th percentile. Here are his comps this season:

PnR BH - PASS OUT	PPP
Dennis Smith Jr.	0.98
Russell Westbrook	0.97
John Wall	0.94
Damian Lillard	0.93
Kemba Walker	1.1
Kyrie Irving	0.92

Again, this is his rookie season compared to the first season from established vets. I believe it's reasonable to expect Smith Jr. to be one of the best pick and roll point guards in the NBA within the not-too-distant future. Much of this has to do with the types of players Dallas puts around him, but their animating principle on that front should be, "who can help Dennis Smith Jr. obliterate defenses in the pick-and-roll?"

Here's an instance where his hesitation and guile freeze Hassan Whiteside, and DSJ is able to get Maxi Kleber and easy dunk:

Here's another DSJ-Kleber PNR from the same game that again shows that Smith Jr. has much more than straight line quickness:

For all of the highlight dunks and the coast-to-coast buckets, this is one of my favorite plays from the rookie this season. The little stutter he gives to the line just outside the elbow has a defender lurching to the key, then recover too hard toward Smith Jr. But Whiteside still has ridiculous length, so DSJ has to find a way, going left, to get the ball back to the diving Kleber.

The Mavericks fanbase is probably as thirsty to crown a young player a potential star as any other group of supporters in the NBA. As a result, there is a level of backlash against over-projecting Smith Jr.; a sense of "not wanting to fall in love and get hurt." This is understandable. But as his first season in Dallas comes to a close, I think we've seen DSJ progress incredibly well from month to month. He's getting to the line more, and continuing to improve in the pick-and-roll game. Those two qualities are a direct result of being a coachable player, which gives me more confidence for Smith Jr.'s future than his ability to leap through the roof.

There is a ton of uncertainty surrounding the Dallas Mavericks right now. The seven worst teams in the NBA are currently separated by just three games, and those are franchise-altering ping pong balls. A number of things could go wrong, just as they did when Dallas spent four year wandering in the wilderness of free agency. Rebuilding expeditiously in the NBA requires a ton of luck to go along with a coherent team-building strategy. But one thing seems clear as the Mavericks look to return to prominence post-Nowitzki: they have their point guard of the future. He is built for the modern game, and his stats and skillset fit in nicely with other elite players at his position.

This might sound dramatic, but the decisions this team makes this offseason will in large part determine what sort of career Dennis Smith Jr. has. The lottery pick they pair with him will likely impact his future as much as anything he can control himself. The Mavericks got the first one right. Let's see if they can elevate him by finding another.