What do the Mavericks do with Doug McDermott?

When the Dallas Mavericks traded away Devin Harris to Denver in exchange for the Knicks’ Doug McDermott and a second-round pick (Dallas will get the less favorable of either Sacramento or Portland’s No. 2), the move was met with mostly positive responses.

There was considerable emotion in seeing Harris, a long-time Maverick and fixture in the community and as a teammate, dealt away but the move was seen as Dallas finally being willing to part with one of its culture leaders for the sake of its burgeoning youth movement.

McDermott was originally drafted 11th overall in 2014 by Denver, ironically, before being traded to Chicago where he signed a two-year, $4.66M deal with the Bulls. In 2017, he was traded to Oklahoma City along with Taj Gibson and a 2018 second-round pick for Cameron Payne, Joffrey Lauvergne and Anthony Morrow before being dealt six months later to the Knicks with Enes Kanter for Carmelo Anthony.

McDermott hasn’t had a chance to find his offensive niche with any of his previous teams, but he is excelling in Dallas in the backup-3 role. He’s shooting 55% from deep and averaging just under 10 points per game in nearly 25 minutes with a net rating of +3.7, by far the best of his career. Before arriving with the Mavericks, McDermott’s highest net rating was +.2 in 44 games with the Bulls in 2016-17.

Since the All-Star break, he’s been particularly hot from deep.

Since the All-Star break, Doug McDermott is shooting 58.5% from deep on 3.3 attempts per game.

That’s unreal. Especially over a stretch of 16 games.

— Sean Bush (@seanbush3) March 28, 2018

Those around the Mavericks have always known McDermott could shoot and score, but it’s the other areas of his game that are shining in Dallas that have raised eyebrows.

Doug McDermott has made himself a little $$ by his play with Mavs. The shooting has been everything you could hope for. But his ability to pass and move without rhr ball to create shots is something we've not seen much of and it's impressive

— Chuck Cooperstein (@coopmavs) March 28, 2018

McDermott himself even opined that he’d imagined playing in a free-flowing offensive system like Carlisle’s would maximize his abilities. So far, he’s right.

Doug McDermott told me after the game that before coming to Dallas, anytime he played against the Mavs he thought about how fun it would be to play in Rick Carlisle's offense.

— Bobby Karalla (@bobbykaralla) February 27, 2018

So what does this all mean? Well, McDermott is 26 so he fits the youth movement of the Mavericks who are preparing for the inevitable (maybe next season) retirement of Dirk Nowitzki. He’s a wing, which Dallas sorely needs, and he’s a seamless fit into the Mavericks’ offense. He’s also a restricted free agent at the end of the season.

Yogi Ferrell and Salah Mejri, both players the Mavericks have expressed interest in keeping, are also restricted free agents. Their respective qualifying offers are lower than McDermott’s (Ferrell’s QO is $1.7M to Mejri’s $1.8M) while McDermott’s is $4.5m. Dallas also desires to bring back Seth Curry despite the 27-year old shooting guard missing the entire season with a leg injury.

The Mavericks have one of the lowest salaries in the league and are currently projected to have around $13M in cap space once the off-season arrives. If Dallas wanted to renounce the rights to all of its impending unrestricted free agents, the Mavericks could carve out somewhere near $25M in cap room.

Needless to say, McDermott’s market won’t command near that much money but it’s safe to assume that his performance for Dallas hasn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the league. For a Mavericks team that is high on maintaining financial flexibility, how much money will Dallas be willing to commit to what figures to be a dynamic second-unit scorer? What will he receive, if anything, from other teams in terms of offers?

It figures to be a very interesting off-season for Dallas and the fate of McDermott’s tenure as a Maverick will be a critical part of it.