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By Alex Kirschenbaum
Contributing Entertainment Writer
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Hot off their first NBA Finals berth in 13 years (they lost to the Boston Celtics in five games), the Dallas Mavericks suddenly face the first major challenge to their roster construction.
While most of their top rotation pieces are under contract into the 2024-25 season, but starting small forward Derrick Jones Jr. is not. The 6-foot-5 UNLV product inked a one-year, veteran's minimum contract with Dallas on a flier last summer, and thoroughly outplayed that deal. Head coach Jason Kidd quickly recognized Jones' upside as a versatile defender and a useful cutter on offense.
Across 76 regular season contests (66 starts), the 26-year-old averaged a career-high 8.6 points on .483/.343/.713 shooting splits, plus 3.3 rebounds, one assist, 0.7 steals, and 0.7 blocks per bout. Jones' shooting efficacy only improved in the playoffs, where he averaged 9.1 points on a .481/.369/.733 slash line, 3.5 rebounds, 1.2 assists, one block, and 0.5 swipes a night, in 22 postseason games.
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Per Marc Stein in a fresh Substack, Mavericks team president Nico Harrison seems likely to offload pricey reserve swingman Tim Hardaway Jr., whom Jones supplanted at the starting small forward slot.
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The 6-foot-5 second-generation veteran wing (his father is Hall of Fame guard Tim Hardaway Sr.) isn't nearly the defender that Jones is, but remained a floor-spacing threat off the bench in 2023-24. In his 79 regular season appearances (12 starts), he averaged 14.4 points while slashing .402/.353/.852, while also chipping in 3.2 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 0.5 steals.
Hardaway is in the last year of his four-season contract and is owed a not-too-unreasonable $16.2 million in 2024-25. Stein notes that shipping out Hardaway should help the Mavericks carve out enough cap real estate to re-sign Jones, as (depending on what Dallas gets back in the deal for Hardaway) the club could have access to a non-taxpayer mid-level exception, worth up to $12.9 million, rather than its current $5.2 million taxpayer mid-level exception.
Mark Deeks of HoopsHype reports that that sticker tag should be enough to hold onto Jones this summer. Jones was a critical contributor on the Mavericks en route to the playoffs, but his inconsistent jumper probably impedes him from making the kind of free-agent coin that allowed bench wing Bruce Brown to ditch the Denver Nuggets fresh off winning a championship last summer and sign a two-season, $45 million deal with the Indiana Pacers (who traded him to the Toronto Raptors as part of their deal to acquire two-time All-Star Pascal Siakam).
Forward Markieff Morris is Dallas' other contributing free agent this summer, but Deeks suggests that the 6-foot-9 Kansas power forward should be easy to keep on a minimum deal. The 34-year-old was only a part-time contributor to the team at the time, averaging just 8.3 minutes per.
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