The Dallas Mavericks had one of the greatest seasons in franchise history last season when Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving led them to the NBA Finals following a wild post-trade deadline surge, but that squad is only a thing of the past now after what transpired on February 1 just before midnight.
That was the day that Nico Harrison decided to trade Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis, and both teams haven’t been the same since. The Lakers were able to string together a strong final stretch to secure a top-three seed while Dallas missed the playoffs altogether after losing in the second round of the Play-In Tournament to the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Mavs and Lakers ended their seasons in polar opposite directions, and Jason Kidd and JJ Redick’s rotations are also opposite in one way. Kidd’s squad would hypothetically benefit Doncic tremendously in his current first-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Redick has to be wishing that he had certain elements of the current Mavericks on his Lakers team.
With Sunday afternoon’s loss to the Timberwolves, Redick and the Lakers now trail 3-1 despite entering the series as favorites, and their backs are all the way against the wall ahead of Game 5 in Los Angeles. In Game 4, Los Angeles lost 116-113 despite Doncic dropping 38 points, and Redick’s biggest issue with his team just happens to be one of Kidd’s biggest strengths in Dallas.
The Lakers’ big man depth is embarrassingly bad, as their starting center, Jaxson Hayes, only played for four minutes on Sunday, and Redick rolled with the same five-man lineup of Doncic, LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Austin Reaves, and Dorian Finney-Smith for the entire second half.
In Dallas, Doncic had anything he could have ever wanted when it comes to centers to operate in the pick and roll with, as he and Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford had outstanding chemistry. Kidd had the luxury of playing with a solid center for 48 minutes every game if he wanted to, and Redick doesn’t have that same luxury.
While Hayes has shown flashes in the pick and roll with Doncic, Redick doesn’t seem to have trust in playing him big minutes in the postseason, and Los Angeles has desperately needed some better minutes out of their frontcourt to compete with Minnesota’s towers down low.
The Timberwolves’ size, headlined by Naz Reid, Rudy Gobert, and Julius Randle, has been too much for the Lakers to contain, and Redick has to be wishing that he had more center depth and size to match up with them. Doncic is at his best when he is playing with a rim-rolling big with whom he can spam the pick and roll, and signing another big should be one of Los Angeles’s first priorities this summer.
Redick, Doncic, and the Lakers still have a shot at taking down the Timberwolves, but it’s going to be a major uphill battle. They are too little to handle Minnesota’s bigs, and Doncic likely wishes he could bring on Gafford and or Lively II to help give Los Angeles the best shot at advancing to the second round.
