This is the kind of deal that makes you wonder what you're missing. By taking Bertans and Dinwiddie off the Wizards' roster, the Mavericks seem to be doing them a favor. Yet it's Dallas who's sending out the second-round pick?
In particular, Bertans has one of the league's least favorable contracts from a team standpoint. In the wake of hitting a career-high 200 3-pointers in just 54 games during the 2019-20 season, Bertans re-signed with Washington for $80 million over five years and hasn't reached the same level since. He has made just 32% of his 3-point attempts this season, falling out of the Wizards' rotation for long stretches.
There's some value in acquiring Bertans, who's a better shooter than he has shown in 2021-22. Despite the slump, Bertans is still a 40% 3-point shooter for his career, and he has experienced no decline from the foul line (28-of-30, 93%). Still, Bertans has to shoot at that level to get on the court, because the rest of his game is deficient. The Mavericks might be able to hide him at times in zone defenses, but Bertans' poor defensive rebound rates for a big man hurt him in that role.
Realistically, Washington should have expected to give up at least a first-round pick to move the remaining $49 million on Bertans' contract beyond this season. (That amount does go down by $11 million if Bertans plays fewer than 75% of his team's games in 2023-24 and is waived before the 2024-25 season.)
As for Dinwiddie, his fit with Bradley Beal was more of a disappointment for the Wizards than his play per se. Dinwiddie remains a useful volume scorer in units otherwise devoid of scoring punch, like Washington without Beal. But his efficiency defied the usual tradeoff with efficiency when paired with Beal. Dinwiddie's true shooting percentage went down despite his usage rate going from 24% without Beal to 15% with him, per NBA Advanced Stats.
That's a concern for a team thinking of pairing Dinwiddie with an even higher-usage ball handler in Doncic. We saw more promise from Dinwiddie as a spot-up shooter with the Brooklyn Nets, where he hit 37% of his catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts in 2019-20, according to Second Spectrum tracking on NBA Advanced Stats. That has dipped to a below-average 34% this season.
On the plus side, Dinwiddie's size (6-foot-5) allows him to defend multiple positions. If he shoots well enough, Dallas could even throw out lineups with all three of Doncic, Dinwiddie and Jalen Brunson to maximize playmaking on the perimeter.
Undoubtedly, adding Dinwiddie will be tied to Brunson becoming an unrestricted free agent this summer. If the bidding for Brunson gets too high, the Mavericks can feel more comfortable letting Brunson go with another ball handler on the roster. Still, that would be a disappointing outcome for Dallas, given Brunson is more than three years younger and has been a far more efficient scorer.
This move does little to help the Mavericks' books long-term. They'll pay Bertans and Dinwiddie slightly more base salary than Porzingis in 2022-23, and the only possible cap relief after that comes if they waive Dinwiddie in the summer of 2023, when just $10 million of his $18.9 million salary is guaranteed through June 30, according to ESPN's Bobby Marks.
Unless there's something important Dallas knows that we don't, this move seems like a step backward for the Mavericks both the rest of this season and beyond.
