The Mavericks had a chance to bring Brandon Williams back, and instead he ended up with the Warriors on a deal that barely locks in anything.
Williams signed a one-year, $2.4 million contract with Golden State this offseason, and the money is fully non-guaranteed. If he’s still on the roster on opening night, $1.4 million becomes guaranteed, and the whole contract turns fully guaranteed on January 10th. Golden State already has 15 players on standard contracts and limited financial flexibility, so unless a trade opens the door, Williams should be staying put.
Dallas, though, reportedly had some interest in keeping him early in the offseason. That possibility looks a lot thinner now that Williams is headed to Golden State on that kind of contract.
It’s not hard to see why the Mavericks might have considered a reunion. They remain a bit light in the backcourt, and Williams just put together a career year, posting 13.0 points and 3.9 assists per game. Stephen Curry was impressed enough to recruit him personally, which only sharpens the question of why Dallas didn’t push harder to keep him.
The answer may be that the Mavericks, now run by team president Masai Ujiri and general manager Mike Schmitz, view Williams as the type of player whose numbers don’t tell the whole story. He’s had his moments over the past few seasons, but the team may believe those flashes came on a bad basketball team.
The biggest issue is the shot. Williams was the third-worst three-point shooter in the NBA last season among players with more than 100 attempts from deep, and his defense doesn’t come close to what Dyson Daniels and Amen Thompson bring. Those two were the only players worse than him in that area.
Dallas is getting Kyrie Irving back from injury this year, but the depth behind him is thin. Marcus Sasser and rookie Sergio De Larrea are the options there now, and while both bring upside - especially De Larrea - that group still looks like a possible problem once the season starts.
Williams could have at least given the Mavericks a jolt off the bench. But making it work would have required another roster move, and that was never going to be easy. It already took Klay Thompson giving back nearly half of his salary to agree to a buyout with the Mavericks just to clear room down to 15 roster spots, and finding another opening would have been even tougher.
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