Dallas Mavericks: Was Wesley Matthews a Mistake?

The Dallas Mavericks made Wesley Matthews their highest paid player this past offseason. Was signing him a mistake?

Last offseason didn’t exactly go as planned. The Dallas Mavericks had their sights set on free agent center, DeAndre Jordan, and nearly signed him before a last-minute change of heart resulted in DeAndre returning to LA and the Dallas Mavericks left holding the bag.

But before agreeing to terms to Jordan, the Mavs first hooked Wesley Matthews. Matthews, the free agent shooting guard from Portland, was less than one year removed from an Achilles injury but was well regarded around the NBA as a strong two-way player with leadership skills.

When DeAndre Jordan went back on his agreement, Matthews held fast. With the newly-found financial wiggle room, the Dallas Mavericks upped their offer to Matthews, making the deal a 4 year/$70M. This made the complementary piece known as Wes Matthews, the primary piece, and raised expectations accordingly.

Today’s overpriced players will become tomorrow’s fairly priced players.

The Dallas Matthews never expected Wesley Matthews to be a superstar from the start. After all, they were there the day he tore his Achilles. An injury of this nature typically robs a player of varying degrees of speed and explosiveness.

The good news with Wesley Matthews is he never really relied on speed and explosiveness. As discussed below in the Related Article, Matthews is a big strong player who plays fundamentally sound offense and defense. A slight loss of speed shouldn’t hurt him as much as it would sloppier players.

Sadly, this season has been a struggle for Wesley Matthews. As Monday’s Dallas vs Charlotte broadcast mentioned, Wes Matthews’ FG% ranks him 117 of 118 qualified NBA players this season.

ESPN’s Hollinger Stats aren’t any more kind to the 29-year old SG. His Player Efficiency Rating is currently at 10.73, ranking him at #46. That’s behind former Dallas Mavericks Jason Terry (44), Vince Carter (40), and Monta Ellis (20).

Estimated Wins Added are equally as harsh, once again placing him at #46 among 50 ranked NBA SGs and Value added stayed true to #46 with a 7.3 score. Statistics and Advanced Statistics have been unkind to the Dallas Mavericks’ highest paid player. It’s difficult to come to the conclusion that he’s anything but a mistake when assessing his offseason addition.

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But I plan to do just that.

Not to double-down on my pre-season flag waving but for as bad as Wesley Matthews has been this season, he’s still not a mistake.

Relatively speaking, Wesley Matthews may be overpaid by today’s standards. There’s no reason he should account for over 20% of the team’s payroll, just like there’s no reason he should keep launching up shots at a 38.5% success rate, but I digress…

By now everyone knows that the NBA salary cap is set to explode under the new deal.

But simple economics tells us, the market will adjust accordingly and players’ salaries will proportionately rise. With nearly every team armed with enough cap space to sign a max player and more, today’s overpriced players will become tomorrow’s fairly priced players.