The Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks both drafted franchise players with No. 3 picks in consecutive drafts, and each team’s path since then has paralleled and diverted in ways worth exploring.
Jared Weiss and Tim Cato cover the Celtics and the Mavericks, respectively, and they discuss what’s similar and different about each franchise’s past and future through the lens of these two ascendant superstar peers.
Tim Cato: Jared, thank goodness that the basketball season is finally over. We can stop this charade of watching “meaningful games” and get into what really matters: free agents photoshopped into the jersey of some Twitter user’s favorite team.
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Jared Weiss: We all know the only thing better than actual basketball is talking about how (insert franchise here) would be a problem if they can trade two above-average starters and three firsts for (insert All-NBA name here).
Cato: We joke, but the offseason is this league’s most engaged time because possibilities can be more exciting than dull midseason realities. And what we’re here to discuss is how the two teams we cover, the Dallas Mavericks and the Boston Celtics, have approached their offseasons over the past half-decade around their respective stars.
Let’s start here, because this is how we came up with this conversation topic: I don’t really feel like Luka Dončić and Jayson Tatum are compared to each other as much as they probably should be. They’re less than one year apart in age and playing the same position. They’ve both been All-NBA first-teamers the past two years. Why is that? Have I just missed it?
Weiss: The proximity of these two players in the NBA’s upper echelon has been closer than most seem to recognize, likely because Dončić was well ahead of Tatum on the development curve for a while and the Celtics star is steadily catching up. He’s finally becoming a good game manager and playmaker who can run an offense. Tatum is able to get to the rack at will and come up with different attacks for different coverages. It’s all stuff Dončić has been elite at since his second season and it’s about time Tatum steps it up there.
The obvious issues with Tatum are that his open shooting has cooled over the past year-plus and he still gets stuck turning it over against elite defenses deep into the postseason. Dončić seems impervious to just about anything thrown at him, though I’m not sure we’ve seen him tested in the playoffs quite as much or as substantially as Tatum. Is that really the case though? Where would you say Dončić is in his trajectory after we just saw Tatum try to pull off an NBA Finals run while the Mavs were watching from home?
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Cato: Yeah, I feel like Dončić is still linked more often to Trae Young than Tatum. They were traded for each other on draft night, of course, and that early narrative of those two players has persisted even as Tatum has clearly emerged on the most similar trajectory.
What Dončić did against the L.A. Clippers in consecutive first-round series is as impressive as any series Tatum has had. But Tatum has made deeper playoff runs, of course, and that’s the thrust of this conversation we wanted to have. Neither franchise went for a slow rebuild once obtaining its star, but Boston was in a far different place — and it was not instantly clear Tatum was this type of franchise player — than when Dallas began building around Dončić.
How would you describe the manner in which Boston has gone about building its current roster, which has been a perennial conference finalist over the past few years?
Weiss: It all started with the Kemba Walker injury just before the pandemic. The team had cycled through three pick-and-roll point guards who were defensive liabilities and had to figure out a way to step into the future. Even before they slid Marcus Smart into the starting point guard spot and went with double bigs under Ime Udoka two seasons ago, they were transitioning to a full switch defense comprised of like-sized wings. So as Brad Stevens replaced Danny Ainge and as Walker’s injuries were tanking his career, they had to make a drastic choice and use a first-round pick to get off his salary.
Taking back Al Horford in a 2021 trade seemed like just a salary match, but he ended up being the first step in a crucial philosophical shift. Ainge had spent years holding onto his assets to see if he could cash in Jaylen Brown or possibly even Tatum for a veteran star.
Cato: It’s the reason Brown has felt unwanted in Boston, after all. The idea he’d be traded isn’t new.
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Weiss: It never happened and by the 2021-22 season, the Jays were just about ready to lead a contender. So Stevens traded for Horford and Josh Richardson to bring in veterans who were competent on the ball and could shoot. When Richardson wasn’t quite fitting the play style they envisioned, they traded him, a first, lottery pick Romeo Langford, and a top-1 protected pick swap in 2027 for Derrick White.
This was the first move that showed how the Celtics were all-in on Tatum and Brown and wanted to bring in versatile, smart, and consistent players around the core. But most importantly, there wasn’t one single go-to ballhandler. They wanted to build a team full of decent playmakers and hope that the Jays could rise above the pack.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. (Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
Cato: You know, the Mavericks also wanted to sign Walker in the summer of 2019 and, to my understanding, would have succeeded if Horford hadn’t unexpectedly left Boston. Then we reach the catalysts you described: Walker’s injury, Horford’s return, the belief that the Celtics could build around Tatum, and so on.
Imagine what Dallas would have done about Walker if the same injury scenario had played out. (And it surely would have since Walker’s knee condition is lingering.) Dallas didn’t have a 2021 first-rounder to deal, like Boston had, because of the Kristaps Porziņģis trade. The team had far less flexibility in general.
The Celtics’ trade for Richardson also involved Dallas. The Mavericks nabbed him for Seth Curry in 2020, but Curry turned out to be better and the second-rounder they received was spent on a player who played 71 NBA minutes. When Dallas traded Richardson to Boston, it was for a trade exception and cap space — space the Mavericks didn’t use. Months later, when the Celtics made their own Richardson trade as you described, they packaged draft assets and a young prospect for a high-value role player in White.
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This is the crux of Dallas’ team-building dilemmas. It began its rebuild in 2017 and ended it not even two years later with the Porziņģis trade after Dončić had proven his stardom. Trading up for Dončić cost them a first-rounder and the Porziņģis deal sent out two more. Yes, Dončić was ready to win almost immediately, which forced the Mavericks’ hand. It’s not that a win-now approach was wrong, necessarily.
But choosing to operate within that tight window comes with risk, and many of the decisions that Dallas has made — starting with Porziņģis but extending from there — cast this team into the horror season experienced last season.
Weiss: The Celtics didn’t have to make that Porziņģis-esque deal in the past few years because of the way they were set up by that notorious Nets trade from a decade ago. They developed Isaiah Thomas to lead them into the playoffs while still getting the third pick two years in a row to draft Tatum and Brown. Then they made their big move trading him for Kyrie Irving and by the time it was Tatum and Brown’s turn to take over, the organization recognized they already had their two stars. So it’s as simple as they got two bites at the apple, nailed it both times, and then made sure they got the extensions done. Who knew how important that part of the equation would be?
But the key thing was that they found a way to make sure when someone vital left, they could bring someone else in to keep them afloat. The chain was Thomas to Irving to Walker to Horford, redux. Even when they came up empty on the 14th pick two years in a row on Romeo Langford and Aaron Nesmith, they built trades with both of those guys to bring in Derrick White and Malcolm Brogdon. It’s amazing they traded the rights to Desmond Bane to get Enes Freedom’s money off the books and everyone just forgot about that massive blunder. They got one decent season out of Gordon Hayward and it didn’t matter because the Jays were stepping into his place.
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Cato: Oh man, a team not drafting Bane? These team’s parallels are feeling spooky.
Weiss: Rather than trying to find free-agent bargains, they generally made tough but fair trades to bring in high-quality role players. Dallas has a similar chain with Porziņģis to Dinwiddie to Irving, but it’s harder to build when those players cycling through are in crucial roles. Boston has kept the Jays, Smart, and Horford together, then used first-round picks to either develop or trade for the complementary pieces.
Cato: Yeah, Dallas was in a much worse position when Dončić was drafted. He’s compared more often to Young because of the trade made with Atlanta, but the Mavericks actually had that draft’s third-best lottery odds. They fell two spots and used a first-rounder to move back up. It was worth it, but it didn’t make the roster-building easier.
The Mavericks have also done a poor job cycling through role players, the Curry-for-Richardson swap being a prime example. Harrison Barnes was dealt for literal cap space only for that space to go unused. (It was intended for Walker, and that might have been a relief.) Every front office messes up. What Dallas hasn’t had since Dončić’s arrival is enough flexibility to move on from mistakes.
That’s the Celtics’ story, right? The team has constantly pivoted its roster to adapt to the two stars this team drafted. Dallas did the same — and then lost that second one, Jalen Brunson, in free agency for no return. The Mavericks were successful in pivoting away from the Porziņģis mistake to grab Dinwiddie which led to Irving. There are enormous questions about that, of course, but they did turn their first attempt at a second star into another one.
But the mistakes and inaction with role players who fill up the rest of their roster have turned their two draft successes — Josh Green and Jaden Hardy, two promising players who are viewed with positive value around the league — into necessary rotation players. Dallas could trade them this summer, but they’re not expendable in the way Boston has been able to trade prospects. Right?
Kristaps Porziņģis and Luka Dončić. (Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images)
Weiss: Boston trading their picks away was founded on the belief that Tatum was steadily improving as a playmaker year-over-year. He was going to be the star that ran the floor rather than letting the play come him. The hope was Brown and Tatum’s scoring ability would open up easier kick outs to teammates who could put the ball on the floor and keep it moving. It’s worked well, but their passing and handling isn’t at that truly transcendent level and Boston’s offense has struggled for consistency when it relies on them.
The way Dončić can draw and then manipulate double teams is something Tatum is getting accustomed to, but Dončić can pass the ball anywhere on the floor out of those situations and Tatum can do that once in a while. So while both teams generally play five out, Boston has to count on its role players to do more of the work to twist the defense into rotation. It’s not a negative and clearly it’s working, but there are times when the structure of the team falls apart and you can see how Tatum can’t pull them out of the ditch the way Dončić can.
As both of these players have matured from blue-chip prospects to actual MVP candidates, they’ve learned how consistently creating easier looks is the key to success. They both built up their careers hitting step-back 3s, but it wasn’t until their free throw rate exploded and their turnovers went down that they really started to hit that next step. The risk of building around a perimeter playmaker is that when the defense is going to give up something, it’s often going to be those tough isolation 3s. When those aren’t falling, it can be a lot more detrimental to the team overall than something like Nikola Jokić missing a layup through a triple team.
Cato: Tatum is the Celtics’ predominant attacking thrust while Dončić is the Mavericks’ offense entirely. What Dončić has done for much of his career is much more similar to Jokić than Tatum.
But there’s a reason Tatum placed fourth in MVP voting last season while Dončić missed out on the top five. Tatum served as the most important cog in a winning machine while Dončić — with injuries and conditioning issues and too many on-court tantrums — couldn’t lift Dallas to the postseason alone. It was not his fault, but he does deserve a share of them. His next step, assuming Irving re-signs, is to help win every margin his team needs rather than only provide his overwhelming nightly advantages.
That’s doable. The Mavericks’ next step, unfortunately, is more difficult. There’s a narrow line to make this roster into a contender, and it’s narrower than Boston’s due to where both franchises started. The Celtics’ positive team-building for the past decade-plus has contributed to them being here while Dallas stalls out. It’s just an interesting contrast, you know?
Weiss: Oh, I forgot about the tantrums! Maybe the most important development from Tatum this past season was he cut out so much of the whining that held him back the year prior. He was more willing to live with the garbage and take pride in getting back on defense. And that’s why the separation between these two players has shrunk to a thin margin that is truly in the eye of the beholder. Dončić can be your offensive system at a nearly unrivaled level, but Tatum is borderline great on both ends of the floor and runs more than almost anyone in the game.
As similar as these two players are in some ways, their contrasting approaches to the game are going to make their ascendancy to the top of the league’s pecking order fascinating over the next few years.
(Top photo of Jayson Tatum and Luka Dončić: Jerome Miron / USA Today)
