Minnesota Sports Forum

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Q -

I don't want to come across as a Barnes apologist here (because I agree with you about his limitations), but each team is different. Dallas is in a weird position. Dirk is old. And the team doesn't have much for assets. But it had space to sign Barnes.

Maybe they looked at him as a stopgap transition from the Dirk era to the next one without having to plummet to the very bottom? Maybe his signing appeased Dirk to stick around with a bad team as they rebuild? I think Dallas is in such a different place than the Wolves that we have to consider what Barnes means to THEM specifically, instead of thinking about what he could do here.

Make sense?

During one of the Dallas Wolves games they were saying how Carlisle absolutely raves about Barnes saying he is one of his favorite players he has ever coached. He said he is maybe the hardest worker he has been around and he mentioned some other impressive players he has played with and coached. I absolutely think the Mavs consider Barnes a significant piece towards what are doing. I think they are THRILLED to have him at his price. Is he THE GUY for that team? No probably not but it sure is nice to have a pretty good 24 year old player locked up for the next few years when you don't have any other top tier talents...yet.

Hadn't heard that but it might dovetail with where I was going.

Teams like Dallas and SA have been successful for so long in part because of the culture of the star player. Both Duncan and Nowitzki have seemed to have unique and selfless personas for those organizations. They've been accountable. And that's huge! And I'm sure neither organization wanted to lose that. SA has Parker and Ginobili to bridge the gap after Duncan left.

Maybe Carlisle has learned that Barnes can bridge that gap for Dallas? I don't know how he could know that going in... but I'm assuming Barnes being willing to be a secondary player on another successful team built on a more selfless style of game was part of what they dug? That Barnes was the type of player (if not talent) that Dallas wanted for the next generation?

And it was all worth not tanking completely. I don't know.



[Note: The signing of Wes Matthews might support this. He's another guy known to be a "team-first" guy by most reports.]

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Q -

I don't want to come across as a Barnes apologist here (because I agree with you about his limitations), but each team is different. Dallas is in a weird position. Dirk is old. And the team doesn't have much for assets. But it had space to sign Barnes.

Maybe they looked at him as a stopgap transition from the Dirk era to the next one without having to plummet to the very bottom? Maybe his signing appeased Dirk to stick around with a bad team as they rebuild? I think Dallas is in such a different place than the Wolves that we have to consider what Barnes means to THEM specifically, instead of thinking about what he could do here.

Make sense?

During one of the Dallas Wolves games they were saying how Carlisle absolutely raves about Barnes saying he is one of his favorite players he has ever coached. He said he is maybe the hardest worker he has been around and he mentioned some other impressive players he has played with and coached. I absolutely think the Mavs consider Barnes a significant piece towards what are doing. I think they are THRILLED to have him at his price. Is he THE GUY for that team? No probably not but it sure is nice to have a pretty good 24 year old player locked up for the next few years when you don't have any other top tier talents...yet.

Hadn't heard that but it might dovetail with where I was going.

Teams like Dallas and SA have been successful for so long in part because of the culture of the star player. Both Duncan and Nowitzki have seemed to have unique and selfless personas for those organizations. They've been accountable. And that's huge! And I'm sure neither organization wanted to lose that. SA has Parker and Ginobili to bridge the gap after Duncan left.

Maybe Carlisle has learned that Barnes can bridge that gap for Dallas? I don't know how he could know that going in... but I'm assuming Barnes being willing to be a secondary player on another successful team built on a more selfless style of game was part of what they dug? That Barnes was the type of player (if not talent) that Dallas wanted for the next generation?

And it was all worth not tanking completely. I don't know.



[Note: The signing of Wes Matthews might support this. He's another guy known to be a "team-first" guy by most reports.]

I don't know what the whole thinking by Dallas was with Barnes but everything I have read about him is he is a good dude very grounded guy. Here is an article Bleed posted in the NBA news forum.

http://www.si.com/nba/2017/01/17/harrison-barnes-ames-iowa-mavericks-fred-hoiberg-doug-mcdermott

Maybe the Mavs knew they were getting a good guy and they were willing to take a chance that he was a 24 year old guy coming from a championship level team that was more than a 3 and D guy if he was more of a high usage player. They seemed to have their mind made up though. Whatever made them decide they were all in on him they went there and it paid off at least so far. Sometimes you are good and sometimes you get lucky. Dwight Powell was a throw in for some larger trade (Rondo?) and he has turned out to be a nice enough player. Seth curry has played well there. They are gonna have $$$ to spend this offseason it will be interesting to see who they target.

Barnes is making max money and he is a 3rd or 4th option on a good team. That's an overpay no matter how much you try to justify it right now. It's pretty cut and dry. If you pay someone max money they need to be the caliber of a top 2/3 player on a good team that can win games or you are overpaying. Barnes has been fine. The Mavs are bad with him getting all the opportunity to show himself as a player who deserves a max deal. You can't get away with paying max money to a non-max caliber player.

khans2k5 wrote:Barnes is making max money and he is a 3rd or 4th option on a good team. That's an overpay no matter how much you try to justify it right now. It's pretty cut and dry. If you pay someone max money they need to be the caliber of a top 2/3 player on a good team that can win games or you are overpaying. Barnes has been fine. The Mavs are bad with him getting all the opportunity to show himself as a player who deserves a max deal. You can't get away with paying max money to a non-max caliber player.

I hear you. And it get it.

But I think last summer was such an anomaly that it knocked everything out of whack a bit. And I think Dallas' situation (trying not to drown or tank) might have made the move even more important.

Cuban must have thought they needed SOMEBODY. Looks like he picked the right guy after Year 1.

Barnes (24): 20.4 ppg / 5.3 reb / 1.5 ast / 47.6% fg / 4 yr $94M
Parsons (28): 6.6 ppg / 1.9 reb / 1.4 ast / 36.6% fg / 4 yr $94M
Batum (28): 14.8 ppg / 7.3 reb / 5.9 ast / 39.6% fg / 5 yr $120M
Crabbe (24): 10.4 ppg / 2.9 reb / 1.3 ast / 45.9% / 4 yr $75M
Deng (31): 8.0 ppg / 5.6 reb / 1.5 ast / 39.6% fg / 4 yr $72M
Turner (28): 9.4 ppg / 4.0 reb / 3.3 ast / 43.2% fg / 4 yr $70M
Bazemore (27): 10.8 ppg 3.2 reb / 2.7 ast / 38.7% fg / 4 yr $70M
Fournier (24): 17.0 ppg / 3.1 reb / 3.3 ast / 44.3% fg / 5 yr $85M
_______HUGE MONEY TO STAY WITH TEAM________
Conley (29): 18.6 ppg / 3.8 reb / 6.2 ast / 43.2% fg / 5 yr $150M
DeRozan (27): 27.9 ppg / 5.3 reb / 3.8 ast / 47.3% fg / 5 yr $139M
Beal (23): 21.9 ppg / 2.8 reb / 3.6 ast / 45.5% fg / 5 yr $127M
Nowitzki (38): 13.3 ppg / 5.8 reb / 1.5 ast / 40.1% fg / 2 yr $50M

One other note... This move didn't destroy Dallas cap. It has only $58M on the books for next season. (Team option on Nowitzki though). Great move? No. But it was right in line with what was happening around the NBA last summer... and it's worked out better than most thus far. He's improved significantly. Relatively speaking. Has anybody else on the top list improved? Dallas was awful to start the season with all the injuries, but they're as much in the playoff race as the Wolves right now.

Good analysis Abe, but I question how much Barnes has improved. Yes, he is scoring a lot more points and his usage has gone up, but that's what happens when you are asked to carry a much bigger load offensively because of a lack of other options. His efficiency is just "meh" and he isn't doing much else at a high level. Heck, he's even worse than Wiggins at passing and getting others easy baskets.

It's a classic usage story. I'm sure he's a hard worker and great team mate. But the only real change I've seen is that he takes a lot more shots. That doesn't necessarily lead to more wins.

Q12543 wrote:Good analysis Abe, but I question how much Barnes has improved. Yes, he is scoring a lot more points and his usage has gone up, but that's what happens when you are asked to carry a much bigger load offensively because of a lack of other options. His efficiency is just "meh" and he isn't doing much else at a high level. Heck, he's even worse than Wiggins at passing and getting others easy baskets.

It's a classic usage story. I'm sure he's a hard worker and great team mate. But the only real change I've seen is that he takes a lot more shots. That doesn't necessarily lead to more wins.

To be fair, people didn't think he could even do that.

Again... part of this is about meeting expectations. And compared to what else was out there, I think Dallas is probably pretty happy. It can be argued very easily that he's the primary reason that Dallas is even remotely in the playoff race.

Is it worth $94M? Don't know. But I think they'd say he was worth $23.5M or whatever he's been paid this season. Year 1 is a "win." We'll see how that contract looks moving forward.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Good analysis Abe, but I question how much Barnes has improved. Yes, he is scoring a lot more points and his usage has gone up, but that's what happens when you are asked to carry a much bigger load offensively because of a lack of other options. His efficiency is just "meh" and he isn't doing much else at a high level. Heck, he's even worse than Wiggins at passing and getting others easy baskets.

It's a classic usage story. I'm sure he's a hard worker and great team mate. But the only real change I've seen is that he takes a lot more shots. That doesn't necessarily lead to more wins.

To be fair, people didn't think he could even do that.

Again... part of this is about meeting expectations. And compared to what else was out there, I think Dallas is probably pretty happy. It can be argued very easily that he's the primary reason that Dallas is even remotely in the playoff race.

Is it worth $94M? Don't know. But I think they'd say he was worth $23.5M or whatever he's been paid this season. Year 1 is a "win." We'll see how that contract looks moving forward.

Q Barnes efficiency has improved every month of the season (not counting Oct since it's just 3 games).

I wanted Ian Clark badly on this team. He wouldn't have cost much, but I think he would have been that wing scorer off the bench we needed instead of Rush.

WildWolf2813 wrote:I wanted Ian Clark badly on this team. He wouldn't have cost much, but I think he would have been that wing scorer off the bench we needed instead of Rush.

I kinda thought it was weird nobody seemed to make any type of offer to him. He is young and I suppose people question if he was really worth something but I liked him and he has put up some pretty good stats this year. He should make some decent money this offseason.