Playoff Picture: Dallas Mavericks
By Luke Duffy
Potential X-Factor
Chandler Parsons
Yes, maybe Ellis should go in here. He started off this season on fire and still continues to give this team the best team orientated basketball of his career. But Parsons truly can be an x-factor in the first-round series against the Rockets in particular. He did spend three seasons there after all, and the split wasn’t all that nice either.
He’ll have the insight track on his former teammates though. More than that he can be that fourth option both in that series and any subsequent ones that follow. He’s a talented wing player in a league that isn’t blessed with a ton of them. He can score the ball in a variety of ways as well. He simply has to be fit for the Mavericks to have their full compliment of weapons.
He’s shooting 38 percent from downtown this year, almost a career high. But defensively he makes a difference as well, he certainly doesn’t coast on that end. Being a two-way player consistently when the likes of Rondo and Nowitzki aren’t always is huge for this team as well. He’s young, reasonably athletic and can do it on both ends, what’s not to like?
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