Mavericks' polarizing veteran already looks done with half the season to go

Dallas Mavericks guard D'Angelo Russell hasn't established himself as a rotation-caliber player through 43 games this season, as the Russell experiment in Dallas already seems to be completely over, with the Mavericks being past the halfway point of their season. Optimally, Dallas will be able to find a trade for the soon-to-be 30-year-old guard ahead of the February 5 trade deadline, but with Russell's value being so low, the Mavericks could be forced to keep him.

Russell has had a few scoring outbursts since being in Dallas, but inefficiency and poor decision-making in the half-court have spurred him to completely lose the trust of head coach Jason Kidd. Russell missed Saturday's game versus the Utah Jazz due to illness, but he had been a DNP-CD in six of Dallas' last seven games before Saturday.

The only game he appeared in throughout the entire month of January was roughly a week ago against the Chicago Bulls, and this came off the heels of Kidd being ejected early in the contest, as Russell likely only played because his former coach, Frank Vogel, was tasked with being the lead man on the bench amidst Kidd's ejection.

Mavericks' D'Angelo Russell experiment is already over

The Mavericks would likely have to attach a young asset or some sort of draft capital to move off Russell at the deadline at this point, but the most realistic path to moving him would be to include him in a bigger trade with someone like Anthony Davis or Klay Thompson. He likely has negative trade value at this point, and other teams would probably only accept him in a deal if his contract was needed for salary-matching purposes.

Dallas isn't doing themselves any favors by not playing Russell whatsoever, as he could at least assume some minutes at shooting guard. Playing off-ball has proven to be a semi-effective role for him in a few games, but Kidd isn't in the wrong for playing Brandon Williams and Ryan Nembhard ahead of him in the point guard rotation whatsoever.

Unless Russell tears it up down the stretch of the season when Dallas is in pure tank mode, it seems highly likely he'll accept his $5.9 million player option this upcoming summer. The Mavericks could be cornered into having to stretch-and-waive Russell in the summer at that point, or they may even have to keep him into next season if they don't have the space to do that.

Perhaps a fresh start could invigorate some life into Russell, but given how much of a black hole he is defensively, he's simply not a NBA caliber player anymore if he continues to be as turnover-prone and inefficient on offense as he's been in his 26 games for the Mavericks this season. Mavericks fans were fairly split on the Russell signing this past summer, but hardly anyone imagined things would go this haywire so quickly, as his NBA career is on the fringes through the halfway point of the season.