In appreciation of Tim Hardaway Jr.

The Mavs’ revolving carousel of function gamers, and their pre-Nico tendency to stay with them for years, has had a predictable impact on Mavericks followers – the emergence of indignant, rival camps of supporters and detractors. Nearly everyone agrees that Dorian Finney-Smith was a gem, however relying on who you ask about guys like Maxi Kleber, Dwight Powell, and even Josh Inexperienced you’re going to get very, very completely different solutions. I used to be by no means a Powell man, I can’t perceive how Josh Inexperienced can look so proficient (offensively) one minute and like somebody who has by no means performed basketball the subsequent, and my beef with Maxi Kleber is simply that he’s been round too lengthy – he was a part of too many unhealthy groups, and it could be finest, for my part, to exorcise him for the vibes. However I all the time preferred Tim Hardaway Jr.

Tim Hardaway Jr. – THJ to his associates – got here to Dallas from the New York Knicks in 2018 at a time when the Knicks appeared to have massively overpaid him. On that Knicks workforce, his $16.5 million bucks made him their third finest participant – roughly twelve million extra, by the way, than a younger Kristaps Porzingis. One of many soiled little secrets and techniques about contracts, nonetheless, is that they preserve going up, and by the point he signed basically the identical contract to remain, in 2021, that was nearly a cut price for a participant of his items. He was – let’s not gloss over it – immensely irritating as a participant. I used to joke that he was the one 80+ % free throw shooter who in some way went 1-2 each single time. The identical appeared true for his three-point capturing, the place he’d find yourself round 37% or 38% by capturing 65% one week and 20% the subsequent.

But what occurred to Hardaway in Dallas shouldn’t be that his streakiness lastly caught up with him. It was a way more regular factor. Position gamers exist on what is actually a ladder. When they’re on the suitable rung, everybody talks about how nice and useful they’re. In the event that they go up, they get overexposed, in the event that they go down, they cease being efficient. For Hardaway, it was the latter. In some methods, you’ll be able to say that what occurred is that his offense was an necessary a part of the workforce earlier than final yr’s midseason infusion of expertise, after which it wasn’t – and the field scores bear that out. Hardaway scored 19+ factors a recreation in October, December, and January, and shot over 37% from three in October, November, and January, whereas enjoying roughly half-hour a recreation. His January was significantly spectacular, 19.2 factors on .445/.381/.880. However come February, he was enjoying 26 minutes, scoring 10.6, and capturing 34% from three and it simply bought worse because the season went on.

However then once more, the enjoying time wasn’t actually about his offense in any respect. In buying P.J. Washington, and Daniel Gafford at midseason, bringing Dereck Full of life alongside, and fostering a Dante Exum and Derrick Jones Jr. renaissance, the Mavs had been capable of assemble a wrecking ball of a protection, one which, from March 7th on, led the workforce to 16 wins and 4 losses, 2 of which had been finish of the season concession video games, whereas holding opponents at 105 factors or below 11 occasions. Nothing about THJ’s recreation made him a probable candidate for a key cog in an aggressive, switching protection, he wasn’t, his enjoying time diminished, and his shot went with it. In different phrases, the Mavs merely moved away from a mode of play that might use what he did effectively to 1 that required what he did poorly.

Even so, of all of the function gamers talked about right here, THJ was in all probability one of the best. It’s simple for followers of the league to suppose that if any NBA participant got sufficient photographs, they’d scored 15+ factors on respectable percentages. But it surely simply isn’t true. As twitter consumer Michael Wei identified to me just a few days in the past (https://x.com/michaelthewei/standing/1805704854083715311) nearly no one truly shot so many threes at such an environment friendly clip whereas Tim was a Mav. If you happen to evaluate his Mavs years to the profession of someone like Buddy Hield, for instance you discover that Tim had worse percentages, however not so a lot worse – .414/.363/.816 to .434/.400/.860 – with a barely larger factors per recreation. That was useful, till it wasn’t, and many groups would discover worth in it.

And so – I don’t know if Detroit will play him or lower him. But when they play him, I count on him to be good for them, on offense anyway. Final yr, Mavs followers suffered by means of a variety of annoying nonsense about how Grant Williams was thriving in Charlotte, as a result of it fed into everybody’s favourite storyline – possibly Luka isn’t actually good? However nothing fascinating occurred for Grant when he moved out of Dallas besides that he climbed the ladder. A a lot worse workforce wanted him extra, he was capable of do extra, he did do extra. The identical might effectively occur to Tim. I hope it does! I recognize what he did right here, and I want him all one of the best.