Assessing where Dennis Smith needs to improve for the Dallas Mavericks

Smith’s game

As a point guard, Smith is not necessarily the best fit with Luka Doncic, certainly on the surface. Smith has always relied on sheer athleticism to get to the rim, and his decision to join NC State out of high school over a top-tier program has been used against him by his critics as it was seen as an “easy route.” Smith also has a tendency to overcomplicate things on the perimeter, often taking a dribble in catch-and-shoot situations when he should just shoot or collapse the defense.

But while Smith obviously has flaws, he is also young enough to be molded. At just 21 years of age, Smith is one of the 50 youngest players in the association, and he is only halfway through his second year in the league. It does seem to some that Rick Carlisle has already given up on incorporating Smith into his system, and he doesn’t even want to trial him in an unorthodox combo guard role that saw Monta Ellis and Jason Terry both have successful careers in Dallas.

Carlisle struggling with a point guard is not really a new phenomenon. For years, the Mavericks’ offense has been built around the gravity that Dirk Nowitzki creates from the elbow. Dallas has combined this perimeter spacing with interior spacing, often having lob threats such as Tyson Chandler and Nerlens Noel to take advantage of the defensive high press at the elbow.

It is for this reason that Carlisle has really preferred point guards who run his plays, as opposed to point guards with a tendency to freelance. Rajon Rondo is the notable Rick Carlisle nightmare, as Rondo often likes to call his own plays and put the ball in spots he wants.

Smith isn’t a personality problem in the way Rondo was, but he has frustrated Carlisle purely on the court. Smith does not consistently ignore plays to the level Rondo did either, but there are times when he will ignore one of Carlisle’s set plays and turn it into more of a one-on-one possession.

Philosophically, Carlisle runs a lot of of set plays, arguably more than any other head coach. But as Tim Bontemps has discussed, Smith has, at times, broken those plays. This is problematic because Smith simply doesn’t have the efficiency to draw double teams, and he also seriously struggles to generate extra plays for his teammates in this style. This is not to say this will be the case forever though, and this is perhaps where Carlisle deserves criticism for the first time in many years.

The chief issue I have seen with Smith all year, is that he does not play well with the Mavericks’ bigs. Well over 90 percent of the center minutes have gone to Dwight Powell and DeAndre Jordan — two players without a jump shot or a reliable pick-and-pop game.

Unlike Doncic, Smith very rarely gets a chance to play with the bench unit. This means that most of the time, he is playing with Jordan. Smith has played poorly with the starters all season, and the majority of his workload has been spent with them. He doesn’t have an offensive rating above 102.1 with any of the starters this year, and he has only played with most of the bench players on a limited basis.

Smith appears to struggle playing with DeAndre Jordan. Jordan is a lob threat, but clogs the lane outside of the Mavericks’ set plays. Carlisle’s set plays over the years have never really suffered from an inside big, but Smith doesn’t mesh well. One of the knocks on Smith during the pre-draft process was that he played against lower competition, and simply bullied his way to the basket at will because of it. In the NBA, it was obviously going to be tougher, and his unfairly unicorn-like athletic profile has not really mattered as much.

Efficiency wise, Smith shoots an acceptable 49 percent on drives. The issue he’s having, though, is that he’s not making plays for others outside the drives. Of the 35 players attempting 10 drives per game, Smith ranks 31st in turnover percentage and 31st in free throw attempts resulting from drives. In addition, he is also 31st in the percentage of points per drive.

Smith can dunk emphatically, but he doesn’t kick out to shooters often enough, and he can get swallowed up on the interior due to him still being reliant on that athletic advantage, as opposed to any real finishing moves. Constant pick-and-roll action has been important for Dallas, but Smith has not meshed well in this concept since entering the NBA.