The Enigma That Is P.J. Washington: Can The Mavs Harness His Full Potential? | K&C Masterpiece

The Enigma That Is P.J. Washington: Can The Mavs Harness His Full Potential? | K&C Masterpiece

What do you think PJ Washington’s strengths and weaknesses are and how can the Mavericks harness his full potential because the reason why I say potential is you look at it and you’re like holy crap I can see why he got drafted so high but eventually Charlotte got to a

Point where they’re like well he’s never going to be the dude and then eventually didn’t have to be on this team that’s true that is very true but then eventually they moved to the point where he is expendable now I know there are reasons he was Expendable he has all

Kinds of upside but we are where we are and you’ve already seen in these three games that OKC game I thought you were like well here we go and then last night against San Antonio maybe not so much this is who he is yeah and the Mavericks

Don’t want this guy okay they believe that there’s more there it’s I compare it to the Rangers signing John Gray from the Colorado Rockies a bad team for most of his career and you see the 97 mph fastball you see the wipe out slider and you’re like we’re going to get that

Every game from him we’re going to figure out how to get that every game so I did this before but I’ll do it again his last four games with Charlotte and you know they wanted him to be their third best consistent player they wanted in their in their scheme of things

Lamelo ball is their Luca he’s never healthy but that’s their Luca and then they have miles Bridges obviously off the court crazy guy kind of and trying to clean that up but he’s there did you see the up to that by the way that everything got dropped right for the

Other one for remember we talked about like the throwing of the pool ball and the violation of the restraining order the cops said they found inconsistencies in that testimony and they dropped it all well and PJ Washington’s career’s been an inconsistent career and that’s the issue is 522 15 and six those were

His last four games in Charlotte and you can go and look at this and he averages 14 in the month of January he has a 43-point game in in there he has a zero point game in there he has a fivepoint game in there he has a 26o game in there

And the the fiveo game is more fascinating to me because he played like 28 minutes a normal amount yeah right I know this the one where he scored zero was six minutes I don’t know what happened in that game but that’s who he is though he’s a dude who sometimes last

Night has three points other nights he’s going to have 23 points you don’t want that out of a you never want that out of a player that’s impossible for a coach to figure out how much should I play him should I play him down the stretch you

Want to know what your gu’s going to be and do yes there’s going to be good games and bad games but you don’t want it to always be good games and bad games PJ Washington did not have a bad game last night he affected the game in other

Ways besides his one of six scoring for three points but you want to have an idea every time PJ Washington takes the court I’m expecting 15 points I don’t want him to score 25 and three I’d rather him score 12 and 17 so I never

See that game but I also never see this game so that’s what the Mavericks traded for I know this from baseball is when you take a guy this inconsistent the organization is saying we can get him consistent one of the shifts I’m curious how you feel about I would like to see

This I know this isn’t the way of the modern NBA and people might tell you it’s inefficient I would like to see him move closer and stop shooting so many three-pointers I realized last month I think it was he did pretty well but for his career he is not a good three-point

Shooter and he usually shoots a pretty decent amount five six a game I don’t he’s just not a good three-point shooter unless we fundamentally overhaul some mechanisms which doesn’t feel like an inseason thing I would like to see him moving toward I’m not saying he’s got to

Drive through the pain every time but I would like to see more mid-range stuff from him perhaps yeah and this is the thing Cory that we just don’t know we don’t know how much he practices three Point shooting with Charlotte sure versus how much he’s going to practice

Three-point shooting with Dallas like I don’t know Dorian finny Smith couldn’t make a three-pointer to save his life literally he would have died a million times for his first three years in his career you were pretty much asking Shaquille O’Neal to shoot Corner three-pointers named Dorian finny Smith

That’s how ugly and horrible it looked but he practiced it so much because the Mavericks said this is what you’re going to get on our team this is how you’re going to become an NBA basketball player we like your athleticism we like your defense you got to figure out how to

Make four out of 10 of these in the corner and then you will get money in this league and Dorian FY Smith figured it out I’m wondering when he was with Charlotte he picked a lot he was the guy picking for lamelo ball and then rolling and and doing different things I’m just

Wondering this is where is there enough time in this season you have them for multiple years what’s his practice going to be like now with the Mavericks to work off of Luca to work off of Kyrie to work off of this offense which is a little bit different than Charlotte yeah

Cuz if you can develop a good pick and roll with one of those two guys or both of those guys or pick and whatever you decide to do with that you’re he won be the Picker here I’m just going to explain this cuz he’s going to be

Guarded by an athletic guy that’s why centers are so important now with with that’s why Dwight pal had to be part of your offense because you want the center switching to Luca you want the center switching to Kyrie so you never really want PJ being the Picker in a lot of

These things cuz he’s going to bring a 6′ s or 6’9 guy who’s somewhat atic you want the seven-footer having to switch and guard Luca and you want the 6’4 guy now having to roll with the center but and I mean triple picks though that’s what I’m looking at all the triple picks

That being said though you know I I know this is a different era different team completely different situation different people but Shawn Maran was a guy that you were like I feel like I can put him on four different offensive players I see that and that’s kind of what I

Foresee with PJ now I’m not saying he just puts the lamps on everybody but he has when you say what are his strengths and weaknesses length and strength I think the dude’s really strong and and wants to compete on that defensive end and that’s one of the things where I’m

I’m going to tell him look man because very similar to Mike your offensive Knights might be few and far between but your defensive effort is going to have to be there every night because maybe there it is a night cuz there was a 22-point game from Shawn Maran in the

Playoff run but it wasn’t every night that you were expecting that out of him so you get that on the night when you need it but you also throughout you have you can got a guy that can guard lots of different positions and I look I wanted

To talk about cuz if we’re talking about maybe one of the weaknesses has been shooting especially from distance absolutely defense look if you look at his defensive rating which I know can be a flawed statistic it looks like it’s taking a downturn just from what you see

On the court right I’ll admit I have not been breaking down all the Charlotte games from earlier in the season so just from what you’ve seen on the court with Dallas I don’t find that to be the case at all and I definitely think you can look at some points where he impacted

The game defensively and and so that’s a balance that quite frankly the Mavericks need like if I have to sacrifice some shooting for more defense I’ll make some and Kyrie are going to get their points Gafford now is going to get his points hell Jaylen har Jaden Hardy is going to

Get something that’s fun uh those guys are going to get their points so let that work itself out but you got to be a better defensive team and that’s one of the key areas well think about what you had before this trade nothing against Derrick Jones Jr he’s revitalized his

Career to being an NBA basketball player he looks like he weighs 110 lbs and I know he weighs more than that but he’s easy to like all right gu guard kawh Leonard if that’s your first round match up all right kaw’s just going to force him underneath the rim and then lay it

Up or dunk on him because he’s not physically strong enough to deal with him PJ Washington is is PJ Washington physically gifted enough athletically to stay with him if he backs the ball out to the perimeter because Derrick Jones guarding kawhai on the perimeter is going to be pretty good it’s just the

Part where he leans his body into him that it’s it’s completely over well now you lean into PJ Washington he’s like I’m fine I’m I’m pretty much as strong as you are like you know guarding Luca Luca can’t blow by guys but he’s so much physically stronger than everybody he

Just has to get you on the side he just has to make one quick step you’re on the side of him and it’s over you’re not going to get back in front of him and he’s going to bully you the rest of the way to wherever he wants to go so now

You have a physical guy and Josh Green I know we’re not talking about him but he’s a guy that’s I hope this isn’t what he did last year do you remember last year this was the time where he took off you know how sometimes guys guys have

Months where you’re like this is the month and this is what I’m hoping about with the month of February month of February Josh Green is when we were like oh my gosh he’s doing it he’s turning into a good NBA basketball player and then we got to the end of February and

March like uh Josh Green can’t play in this league anymore how did this change and so I’m hoping that this Josh Green is here to stay I’ve seen this Josh Green before it was around this time last year for long for the rest of the

Season I need him to be this guy I need him to be in the starting spot and play 24 really solid minutes for you I do like I do like these trades though because PJ Washington isn’t a one-trick pony you just talked about hey he can score around the basket he can dribble

The ball we’re hoping that he can become a better Corner three-point shooter to add that to his game but he’s not nothing against Dorian finny Smith literally only thing that Dorian finny Smith could do offensively was he could dunk a basketball that’s one and then two he could shoot Corner threes at a

High percentage and PJ Washington said something I think was after the not last night but the game before everybody was telling me I was going to get a lot of open shots but I didn’t realize it until I was out there playing with Luca Kyrie and all those guys so that might

Naturally change some of the way you shoot as much as well if you know you’re going to get that extra like half second quarter second whatever I’ll go real quick to my tweet which I pretty much said this team has a chance to win at all and I’m I’m condensing it I said

They’re probably not and the reason I’m saying they’re probably not is because there’s not enough time to jail so as we talk about PJ Washington just bringing this in there’s not enough time for him to practice threep Point shooting from the corner off of Luca like he’s

Realizing wow they just you don’t have much practice time in the second half of the season because guys are wearing down and so you your practices are more walkthroughs than practices uh but I think he can get better I think this Mavs team now has every it needs so in

My tweet I said this you have the two superstars one is a super superstar the other one can work off of the Superstar he’s done it before he just has to stay healthy in Kyrie you have Wing Defenders we just mentioned this in PJ Washington Josh Green Derrick Jones Jr if Dante

Exom is ever healthy so you have a plethora and Maxi kba who’s really a wing Defender who can guard multiple positions but really a good tall Wing Defender uh so you have all of that you have some guys that can score off of the bench in Hardaway and Hardy you have two

Legitimate big guys at now Dwight pal who really should just be in this league waving a tow like let’s face it for the last five years he should have never been playing MBA Basketball he should just be on the team as a good teammate but we’ve had to play him for five

Straight years so you have everything there and then the majority of your guys are all in their mid 20s besides Kyrie and I guess you could say Maxi who’s part of your major rotation everybody else is in their mid 20s for the most part so this looks like a team that

Could grow into something special and to go along with that a lot of them are locked up for multiple years yeah so I look at it Derrik Lively came back he made a Major Impact San Antonio looked horrible in the second half and I don’t know like where San Antonio is going

With wi wimy I do like him he’s a really good player but that didn’t look good at all last night now our young player from the same draft you just mentioned him is Derek Lively Dereck Lively came back came off the bench which is logical given the progression one of the things

That he said about playing with his mask uhuh it is he said I’m probably going to have to wear it for the next three or four weeks to make sure my nose heals straight and everything like that so just be prepared for that last thing this is maybe a question for tomorrow I

Wonder when you get past the All-Star break and you come back Gafford and Lively I think they share the position but I just wonder is it better to start gaffard is it better to start Lively does that matter you know I think gafford’s going to be in your closing

Five minutes and I think Lively will grow into that in his career but I I’m wondering when you get back from break right now you need to get as many reps with Gafford as you can before playoffs my opinion and can I just I’m going to

Throw this out there and I realize that a lot of people don’t agree with this I do think you’re going to see them on the court sometimes together I know I realized the three-point shooting deficit of why that won’t happen I’m not saying it’s going to be to close the

Game I think you’re going to see plenty of spurts with them and they’re together to see how it plays out so just keep an eye out on that as well okay we’re the thank Cory

Newly acquired Mavs forward P.J. Washington wowed with 14 points in his debut with the team… only to follow it up with a forgettable 3 point effort against the Spurs. Will the Mavs be able to get the most out of the enigmatic piece?

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