One of the more quiet moves of a chaotic NBA summer could also sneakily prove to be one of the most underrated.
Seth Curry showed strong potential toward the end of last season as a point guard for the Sacramento Kings, after previously spending a majority of the season playing off the ball. He received significant playing time beginning on March 25, and after that date he had a 17-point, 5-assist game, a 17-point, 4-assist game, and in game No. 81 he scored 20 points and dished out a whopping 15 assists in a win against the Suns.
All told, he averaged 15.2 points and 3.8 assists in his final 11 games as a King, with plenty of time in those contests coming at the point guard position. He demonstrated that he could play both on the ball as a facilitator and off the ball as a cutter and 3-point shooter. But where will he fit in with the Mavericks?
Deron Williams and J.J. Barea both had strong seasons at the point guard spot in 2015-16. Williams commanded the starting lineup offense and was one of the most efficient clutch players in the NBA, while Barea ran the second unit beautifully and won Western Conference Player of the Week as a fill-in starter early in April. Those two players seem to have a stranglehold on the available point guard minutes.
Shooting guard, however, is where Curry could see plenty of minutes available. Wesley Matthews and Justin Anderson can both play that position, but more than 75 percent of Anderson’s minutes last season came at small forward rather than shooting guard, per Basketball-Reference, and even Matthews played more than 60 percent of his minutes at the 3 due to the team’s penchant to play small with Chandler Parsons and by necessity without him. Harrison Barnes will almost certainly start at small forward, but he’s got the ability to play the 4 position and I wonder how often Dallas will utilize him in that role.
Curry’s best role could be similar to another player’s who’s already on the roster. But before we get too much further into this, let’s take a look at some of the playmaking abilities Curry flashed at the end of last season in Sacramento, particularly out of the pick-and-roll.
Curry showed he could make the simple pass…
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…but he also plays with quite a bit of crowd-pleasing flair, too.
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Kings roll men scored 1.083 points per possession on passes from Curry last season, according to Synergy Sports, which ranked in the 72nd percentile in the NBA. That’s a solid mark, especially for a team which oftentimes played a 3-out, 2-in offense with relatively limited spacing. The Mavericks almost exclusively play a 4-out offense which leaves space open for the roll men and makes the point guard’s job just a bit easier.
Curry also showed he can read what the defense is doing.
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There, he takes a screen from Rudy Gay and drives into the lane. Gay’s defender sticks to Gay, leaving Gary Harris to fend for himself on Curry. He can’t slow him down, allowing Curry into the paint. From there, it’s a matter of reading the center and the weakside defender, Will Barton. Barton stays home, leaving Jusuf Nurkic to play 1-on-2, so he has to stop the ball. Curry then makes the easy pass to Kosta Koufos, who makes a nice reverse finish for two points.
That’s a notable play because only a few minutes earlier, Curry made a similar drive into the lane but this time Barton collapsed, leaving the weakside shooter open.
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The Mavericks run virtually identical offense using Dirk Nowitzki as the screener up top and a big man hanging around the basket down low. It’s very easy to see this translating over to the Mavericks immediately.
Kings spot-up shooters connected on just 20.7 percent of their field goal attempts following a Curry pass out of the pick-and-roll, per Synergy, and that’s not Curry’s fault. He’d have had a few more assists if the shooters connected, but the Kings battled injuries down the stretch last season and just couldn’t knock down those jumpers efficiently. The point, though, is he has the floor vision to make passes out of the pick-and-roll, and you already know he has the ability to score. Those are traits that will help him earn and maintain playing time in this rotation.
So Curry can score like a shooting guard but facilitate like a point guard. Where does he fit in?
While their games are quite different, Curry is similar to Devin Harris in that he could potentially be best as a combo guard playing next to a point guard. Harris played just over half his total minutes next to Barea last season, per nbawowy.com, while roughly one-third came next to Raymond Felton and the rest were with Deron Williams. Harris is a valuable off-guard because he moves well away from the ball and can shoot, but he can also facilitate when necessary, and running offense through any position other than point guard remains a good recipe to knock defenses off-balance. Carlisle-coached teams have a history of bringing in combo guards off the bench, from Jason Terry to Rodrigue Beaubois to Harris. Even J.J. Barea played shooting guard for the Mavericks during their run to the 2011 title.
That’s where Curry could fit in smoothly with the Mavericks, although he’s one of five guards (including Matthews, who starts at 2) who will be battling for playing time at the position. That also doesn’t include training camp invites Jonathan Gibson and Kyle Collinsworth, among others, who will be competing for roster spots. All that said, Rick Carlisle has proven in the past that he will ride the hot hand when it comes to giving minutes to his substitutes, and he also loves playing small, so there’s clearly room for Curry to see plenty of action if he performs anywhere near the level he achieved toward the end of last season.
There will be no shortage of available playing time for the Mavs’ guards, especially for Curry and Harris, the two players on this roster who can facilitate outside of the point guard position perhaps better than anyone else on the roster. Curry can run the pick-and-roll and can also shoot it well himself, connecting on a team-best 45.0 percent of his 3-point attempts last season in Sacramento. Slide Curry in next to either Williams or Barea and suddenly the Mavericks will have two ball-handling guards who can both run offense and shoot. It’s the same effect as we’ve seen with Harris in each of the last two seasons, and the Mavs have enjoyed some success in those situations. You could see all four of those guards functioning well together in any combination.
The presence of Curry and Harris in the rotation gives Dallas the freedom to play super small at 2, or the Mavs can turn to Matthews or Anderson for extended minutes at shooting guard. This team can play either big or small at all positions, 1-5.
If Curry can reach the same heights this season as he did toward the end of the last, the Mavericks will have found themselves quite the under-the-radar pick-up in a 26-year-old combo guard with an exciting present and a bright future. His position might be in question right now, but if he performs, it won’t be for long. As many Dallas combo guards have proven in the past, if you can play, you can play. Position doesn’t matter.
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