Unexpected Heroes: Grading the Mavericks’ Players Against the Suns
After winning their home opener against the San Antonio Spurs, the Dallas Mavericks hit the road to take on the Phoenix Suns Saturday night. The Mavericks took two out of three matchups against the Suns last season, including a Christmas Day game where Luka Doncic dropped 50 points.
The Mavericks were without rotation piece Dante Exum who remains sidelined after Offseason surgery, with the Suns listing Bradley Beal and Grayson Allen as notable absences. Despite facing a team playing their third game in four nights, the Mavericks couldn’t put together enough to get a W in this one.
Before we get into the grades for each player’s performance, here is a quick reminder of the grading ground rules since this is only the second in a recurring series.
Grades will be given to all Mavericks players who logged meaningful game time/stats.
The grading system will use an alphabetical scale of: D, C-, C, C+, B-, B, B+, A-, A, A+ (for those who prefer a numeric scale, you’ll notice you can conveniently use these ten letter grades as a 1-10 scale if you prefer – we love math people, too).
There is no F grade. It would defy credibility to categorize anyone capable of making an NBA roster as a “fail,” no matter how bad a game they had.
Players will generally be graded to scale. In other words, a Luka A+ is going to look different than a Dwight Powell A+ for obvious reasons.
If a player logged mostly garbage time and had few or no stats, they will not be included or otherwise given an N/A instead of a grade.
Luka Doncic
If you lead the league in scoring average last year with 33.9 PPG, dropping 40 is a sure-fire way to get high marks. Luka played an excellent game, going 12-for-25 from the floor, 5-for-13 from three and 11-for-12 from the free throw line. 40 points, 10 rebounds and even 4 assists in a game where the team shot under 40% was a massive bright spot in an otherwise disappointing game.
Grade: A+
Kyrie Irving
Kyrie had a solid night dropping in 22 points while leading the team in assists (5) and steals (3), however his shooting percentage was not spectacular. He hit 40% on 5 attempts from three, but was 9-for-22 from the field overall. On tonight’s Pod Maverick broadcast, David Trink made a great point no one else is talking about – perhaps Kyrie is still working his shot back from Offseason hand surgery. Whatever the case, he’s playing hard and contributing, but it will be nice to see the lethality of his shot hopefully return soon.
Grade: B+
Klay Thompson
Thompson looks surprisingly well adjusted for a guy who played his whole career in another city up until this season. He did everything you could hope for, going 5-for-12 (41.7%) from three and scoring 19 points. He added 3 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 steal and was once again locked in on defense in a very solid performance.
Grade: A
PJ Washington
After a quietly solid game in the season opener, Washington probably wishes he had some of tonight’s shots back. He shot a woeful 2-for-10 from the floor, missing all but one of his five three-point attempts. He did grab 6 boards, had 1 steal and 1 block, but for 35 minutes of action, the team would have benefited mightily if he knocked down a couple more of his wide-open corner threes.
Grade: C-
Dereck Lively II
Lively didn’t score much (5 points), but hit both of his field goal attempts and also pulled down 11 rebounds (4 offensive). He also dished 3 assists, but did not record a block. His biggest problem was early foul trouble that limited his floor time to only 21 minutes, but he had a solid game despite the limited playing time.
Grade: B
Naji Marshall
Marshall’s shooting woes continued into game 2 of the season, highlighted by a missed layup in the 3rd Quarter that somehow is best described as being “over-shot.” On the other hand, he looked comfortable and active, and again brought up the ball and initiated the offense well on several occasions. He somehow had the best plus/minus on the team, but it was sadly 0.
Grade: C
Daniel Gafford
Gafford put on a puzzling display. He pulled down 4 offensive rebounds (8 total) and was his usual active self, but his shooting was bizarre. He front-rimmed a few shots from a couple feet away and for a guy who shot 72.5% from the field last season, tonight was well below the norm. On the plus side, he also dished 4 assists to go with 7 points in only 18 minutes of action.
Grade: B
Maxi Kleber
Kleber’s stat line wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t notable in any particular way either. He made some efforts that won’t show in the box score, but when the Mavs were forced to go small with Kleber down low, Jusuf Nurkic became a one-man offense scoring twelve straight Suns’ points.
Grade: C
Jaden Hardy
Other than a single rebound (and a personal foul, if you want to count that as a stat), Hardy was a non-factor. He missed all four of his shot attempts, including going 0-for-3 on threes in just a touch over twelve minutes of burn.
