The Sunday Mail
At some point, we’re going to have to admit the Mavericks have an eye for talent. Dallas has its draft day woes for sure. Just look at Justin Anderson toiling away at the bench for another reminder. Yet somehow, the Mavericks find ways to scoop up young-ish misfit toys and turn them into serviceable basketball players.
O.J. Mayo. DeJuan Blair. Brandan Wright. Al-Farouq Aminu. Salah Mejri. Hell, even Monta Ellis to a certain degree. All dudes the rest of the league didn’t really know what to do with so the Mavs just shyly gobble them onto the roster.
All of these guys put in miraculous work with Dallas.
Enter Seth Curry!
In all the free-agent spending bonanza, the Mavs nabbed the lesser-known Curry for $6 million — over two years. Even if Curry’s late-season explosion with the Kings was a mirage, NBA teams wipe their butts with $6 million. It was basically chump change. It never really made all that sense.
Curry was still raw, bouncing from team to team without getting any NBA game-action but he was always a good shooter and if you haven’t noticed, teams put a premium on shooting like it’s been banned by the government.
Every team wants it and you never have enough.
Now that Curry is finally part of an NBA rotation, he’s showing out. He shot 49 percent from three in December, averaging 25 minutes and almost four looks from deep per game.
When Andrew Bogut went down with his 500th leg injury, Rick Carlisle decided to go small and give Curry more run. It’s paid off.
Curry’s continued his hot shooting from December and is now posting 54/56/81 percent shooting splits this month, averaging 11 points per game.
The Mavs defensive and offensive net ratings get worse when he’s off the floor by a decent margin, according to NBA.com (minus-1.9 net rating on, minus-7.3 net rating off).
He broke the 30 minute barrier for the fourth time this month Thursday night against the Heat and Carlisle clearly is starting to trust him.
He still has a ways to go — he’s barely played a full season’s worth of NBA games for his career. He’s surprisingly helpful on defense, though his size doesn’t help at off-guard, where he primarily plays.
Curry is second on the team in deflections behind Wes Matthews and he genuinely hustles to his spots on defense with great consistency. The Mavs probably need him to be a better passer, he’s averaging less than an assist per game this month.
That’s why he is at his best playing next to another point guard like Deron Williams, so Curry isn’t expected to orchestrate an offense.
Curry likes to score and he isn’t the greatest facilitator out of the pick and roll. The offense can die when he’s initiating fairly quickly. Even with those warts, what a steal.
The second year of that $6 million deal isn’t even a player option, so the Mavs will get another season of dirt-cheap production and can hopefully turn him into somewhat of a building block next to Harrison Barnes.
The Mavs are eerily good at this. If only this led to better drafts. —Yahoo.
