Dallas Mavericks: Raymond Felton’s Opt-In Doesn’t Solve PG Problem
By Phil Watson
According to a report, the Dallas Mavericks will have at least one of their plethora of point guards on the books for 2015-16, as veteran Raymond Felton has informed the team he plans to exercise his $4.5 million option for next season.
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The Dallas Morning News reported that Felton’s agent told the Mavericks that Felton will opt in for next season.
Felton is one of many options Dallas tried at point guard last season, beginning with Jameer Nelson, who was shipped to the Boston Celtics in the ill-fated trade that brought in Rajon Rondo.
Then there was Devin Harris, who got just three starts. J.J. Barea started 10 games and then Rondo arrived on the scene.
The effect was well-documented. Rondo disrupted the flow of an offense that had been the NBA’s most-efficient but wound up as the fifth-best in the NBA, clashed with coach Rick Carlisle and couldn’t make a free throw if his very life depended on it.
Felton also started three games, but was limited to just 29 appearances during the regular season. He sat out the first four games of the season for his guilty plea to gun charges while a member of the New York Knicks in 2013-14 and was slowed by an ankle injury sustained during training camp.
Felton, a starter for most of his career with the Charlotte Bobcats, Knicks, Denver Nuggets and Portland Trail Blazers, never really got settled into the rotation, averaging just 3.7 points and 1.4 assists in 9.7 minutes per game and shooting .406/.294/.800.
He played in three games during Dallas’ five-game loss to the Houston Rockets in the first-round of the playoffs, starting Game 3 after being a DNP-Coach’s Decision in Game 1, and averaged 3.7 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists while going 4-for-15 from the floor and making all three of his free-throw attempts.
Felton had an odd series, to be sure—not many players in NBA playoff annals have gone from a Game 1 DNP-CD to a Game 3 start back to a Game 5 DNP-CD.
Going into the offseason, the Mavericks have only three players signed for next season—forwards Dirk Nowitzki and Chandler Parsons along with Harris.
They are also on the books for almost $1 million to Gal Mekel, who was waived prior to the start of last season.
Felton’s opt-in will push their commitments for next season to a little more than $34.4 million, just more than half of the projected salary cap of $67.1 million, and that total includes the roughly $1.2 million qualifying offer for restricted free agent center Bernard James, who returned to the Mavs on a pair of 10-day contracts in February before signing for the remainder of the year on March 3.
Forward Al-Farouq Aminu already announced that he will opt out of his $1.1 million player option for next season, while guard Monta Ellis has yet to indicate what he will do with the nearly $9.1 million option he holds for 2015-16.
Everyone else is a free agent, including Rondo and Barea, leaving the Mavericks looking for a point guard once again.
The free agency options aren’t terrific unless Goran Dragic opts out of his deal with the Miami Heat. There are some options that will be restricted free agents—the route the Mavs took to grab Parsons away from the Rockets last summer—including Brandon Knight of the Phoenix Suns, Reggie Jackson of the Detroit Pistons and Houston’s Patrick Beverley.
But the market for unrestricted free agents begins with Rondo—a non-starter for the Mavs, obviously—and then drops to backups such as Jeremy Lin, Mo Williams and Aaron Brooks.
Unless they can swing a trade, the Mavericks won’t pick until 21st overall in next month’s NBA Draft.
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So that will exclude them from the guys at the top of the draft board, including Dallas native Emmanuel Mudiay and Ohio State combo guard D’Angelo Russell.
But it may also prevent them from being in position for the second-tier prospects such as Jerian Grant of Notre Dame and Tyus Jones of Duke (although, let’s be honest, an Ellis-Jones backcourt might be the leakiest in NBA history from a defensive standpoint).
Perhaps the best available prospect would be Delon Wright of Utah, an actual college senior (gasp!) who averaged 14.7 points, five rebounds and five assists for the Utes last season and is currently ranked No. 26 in this year’s class by DraftExpress, or Brazilian teenager George De Paula, who is No. 30 according to Draft Express and would be a long-term prospect at age 18 and measuring 6-foot-5½ and just 197 pounds at last week’s draft combine.
General manager Donnie Nelson and owner Mark Cuban almost always find a way to fill in the holes in the jigsaw puzzle with guys who fit.
But coming up with a point guard who can lead the offense for a contender in the Western Conference looks like a daunting task, at the very least.
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