Small-ball, a Thing of the Past

Or could another iteration come in handy?

Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images

This was supposed to be a Maxi Kleber 2024-25 Player Card article. But like many fans, I found it hard to get excited about a player who, along with Dwight Powell, is one of the last holdovers from the pre-Luka Dončić era. Kleber and Powell are remnants of the old era, and we all want to hear, watch, and read about the exciting new.

We’ve watched Kleber for seven seasons, through ups and downs, injuries, and disappointments. Now, with Dereck Lively II clearly the future and Daniel Gafford representing a much more exciting present, the Mavericks finally have two legitimate centers after years of searching for just one. 48 minutes of rim-rolling, rim-protecting bigs, baby!

So why, after the Mavericks finally seem to have moved on from (over)relying on the 'unreliable' Kleber, should we even care?

It was a loyal reader, Filip, who sparked this line of thinking when he suggested I write more about trade-offs. Trade-offs in terms of different styles of play, lineups, the offense vs defense dilemmas, and how they all intertwine...

If you think about the curveballs Jason Kidd can throw to shift the flow—or even the style—of the game, things seem pretty straightforward. With Dončić, you know what you're getting: a pick-and-roll heavy game that relentlessly finds and exploits weaknesses or mismatches. Irving brings more of the same, a more subtle but equally relentless attacker in isolation. Lively and Gafford are there to provide structure and create attacking angles with screens, rolling hard and soaring above the rim as outlets that keep defenses in constant limbo. Klay Thompson will provide elite shooting, but he won’t change the type of offense, which is heavily centered around Dončić and, to a lesser extent, Irving. At this point, no one does.

What can change are the spacing and outlet options around them.

More space, more offense

The Finals were a painful reminder for the Mavericks of the adjustments and, more importantly, the extra space needed to effectively attack an elite switch-everything defense. When the opponent switches, the pick-and-roll doesn’t create an angle or gap advantage—the advantage is in the cross-match. To exploit that, you need space to widen the gap and make it harder for help defenders. By playing two non-shooters most of the time, the Mavericks lacked the shooting and spacing to effectively attack the Celtics in those situations.

The top three offenses in the NBA last season—Boston, Indiana, and OKC—all relied heavily on a stretch big to create that spacing. The center duos of Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford, Chet Holmgren and Jaylin Williams, and Myles Turner and Jalen Smith combined for more than 450 three-point attempts in the regular season. The Mavericks won’t revert to the Porzingis or Turner-type finesse shooting big—Lively is the future. But if you compare the backup options like Horford and 'Big Williams’ from OKC, this is where Kleber comes into play—he’s a very close match, at least statistically.

Since 2021, only four players have logged at least 700 minutes while maintaining a block rate of 2.5 percent or higher, a defensive rebounding rate of 14 percent or more, and taking over 60 percent of their shots from three-point range: Horford and Kleber achieved this twice, while Williams and Robert Covington each did it once.

Horford shot 47 percent from three in the Finals, pulling the Mavericks' help defense away from the basket and demonstrating the value of a big who can both shoot and switch in the playoffs. Not that the Mavericks needed a reminder—in 2022, Kleber stretched the Jazz defense, built around Rudy Gobert's paint dominance, until it broke, draining 16 three-pointers in the first round. The Mavericks missed that version of Kleber as a counter to the Celtics' switching in the Finals, with Lively and Gafford's lob game taken away.

After another season marked by injuries, in which Kleber missed 39 regular season games and 9 playoff games due to various setbacks, the question of whether that version of him still exists is certainly valid. It didn’t in the Finals, where Kleber looked out of rhythm and lacked confidence. However, there were glimpses earlier in the playoffs against the Clippers, when Kidd's decision to go with a smaller, more versatile Kleber-P.J. Washington frontcourt in the fourth quarter of Game 2 might have been the crucial adjustment that turned the game—and the series—around. This move countered Ty Lue's smaller unit's switching defense and provided Dončić with more room to operate.

Kleber left another big imprint later in the same series, hitting five of his seven three-point attempts (four of which came in the first half), helping the Mavericks secure an important Game 5 victory. Unfortunately, he never looked the same for the remainder of the playoffs after injuring his back in a collision with Amir Coffey in Game 6.

Secret weapon: the Washington and Kleber combo

The Kleber and Washington pairing during the Clippers series didn't appear out of nowhere. Like many other things, Kidd tested it during his regular season 'lab experiments.' Most Mavs fans hated it—I remember one Twitter follower constantly telling me, 'Iztok, Mavs need to play big!' every time I brought up these lineups—because it deviated from the exciting two rim-rolling bigs for 48 minutes strategy. Despite the criticism, the regular-season numbers for these lineups were outstanding.

Per Cleaning the Glass, the Mavericks had a point differential of +19.5 points over 451 possessions when Washington and Kleber shared the floor, allowing just 98.9 points per 100 possessions. Both marks ranked in the 99th percentile—placing them among the best lineups in the NBA last season.

Here are a few offensive possessions from those lineups, and it’s clear to see the appeal—plenty of open space when Kleber and Washington are hitting their outside shots.

Now, rewatch the clips and note how often the only Maverick inside the three-point arc is the ball handler attacking the paint.

nother pattern that stood out in these possessions was the frequent involvement of Tim Hardaway Jr. or Dante Exum as the fifth man on the floor. The latter, in particular, excelled as the connector—a player who could drive against a rotating defense and find the open shooter. It’s hard not to imagine Thompson replacing Hardaway and Exum in these situations. He’s a much better shooter than both, with one of the quickest releases—a problem area for Exum, as highlighted in his Player Card—which means he’ll stretch opposing defenses even further. Despite his struggles last season, per Second Spectrum tracking data, Thompson remained one of the top 20 players in the NBA at attacking close-outs, excelling in situations where he doesn’t have to create the advantage but rather maintain or exploit it.

A not so small, 'small-ball'

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Remember those block, defensive rebound, and three-point rate criteria mentioned earlier that only Kleber, Horford, Williams, and Covington matched?

Well, if we lower the share of three-point shots threshold from 60 to 50 percent, we get 14 player-season matches over the last three seasons. Washington was one of them during the 2021-22 season, when he spent extended time playing the five position in Charlotte. Take this as my nerdy way of saying the Mavericks have two players capable of serving as secondary rim protectors, holding their own on the defensive glass, and being comfortable firing away from three.

One of the past issues with lineups featuring Kleber at center was that he was typically paired with Dorian Finney-Smith in the frontcourt. While Doe-Doe was a strong on-ball defender and listed at the same height as Washington, he couldn't match his wingspan and bulk. With Washington in his place, this new version of Mavericks' "small-ball" isn't actually that small and is far more competent at protecting the rim and holding its own on the glass.

If I circle back to my reader Filip’s suggestion about trade-offs, lineups featuring Washington and Kleber allow the Mavericks to present a different look on the defensive end as well. While neither is a rim protector on the level of Lively or Gafford, together they can provide enough resistance at the rim in short stints, allowing the Mavericks to play a switch-heavy defensive scheme that often suits Dončić best. It also allows Kidd to use them as interchangeable ball handler and screener defenders, offering a different look to throw at opponents and disrupt their pick-and-roll game.

I know some of my readers won’t be too excited about Maxi Kleber at this point in his career. Lively is the future—I’m saying this for the third time in this column just to be clear. The 20-year-old's development is way ahead of the curve for a big man. Lively has already shown he’s capable of doing some of the things, like switching on defense, that make small-ball appealing. He’ll get stronger, and once he develops a post game, he’ll make the same switching strategy more difficult for opponents on the other end. His corner three in the Finals might be a sign that Lively could eventually develop an outside shot. But until he’s comfortable shooting threes at a decent volume, having a different trick pitch in the Mavericks' arsenal is a versatility they shouldn’t give up.

Maybe the idea of small-ball with Kleber is just that—an intriguing concept of the past rather than a dependable future option. If Kleber's injury struggles continue, perhaps the Mavericks will look to a new iteration of it with Washington and Naji Marshall. With all the depth Nico Harrison has added over the last year, anything the Mavericks get from Kleber at this point is like playing with house money. The best scenario seems to resemble what the Mavericks faced in the Finals: using Kleber in an Al Horford-type bench role, but with Porzingis-like restrictions—allowing him to miss as many games as needed, saving him for the playoffs, where he could provide that different look if necessary and hopefully change a game or two, just like the Latvian did. To win the ultimate prize, you need every option available, and this version of Mavericks' small-ball should remain one of them.