Kidd's Daniel Gafford plan crumbled, and the Mavericks need to move on now

After beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 106-98 on Friday night, the Dallas Mavericks avoided one of the lowest points of the season. Had Dallas lost, the team would have fallen to 22-20 with just under half of the season left.

While the team has battled injuries and illnesses for most of the season, the Mavericks have struggled to stay afloat, as Luka Doncic will be sidelined for a few more weeks. Despite the sluggish start through January, the team will have the trade deadline for an attempt at retooling their roster.

One of the Mavericks' biggest needs has always been a backup four. The backup power forward spot is not only Dallas' biggest hole on their roster but has also seemingly held them back from consistent play while the team has battled injuries.

With this in mind, the team could make multiple moves in order to fill this need in the coming weeks. Despite this positive outlook, it may require the team to trade one of their most coveted assets, which recently was just made available around the league with the trade deadline looming.

Daniel Gafford could be Dallas' next big trade piece

Daniel Gafford was acquired at last season's trade deadline and could largely be pointed at as one of the moves Dallas made that pushed them all the way to the NBA Finals in June. While Gafford has had a solid year in Dallas with averaging 11.7 points per game on 70.5 percent from the field, his time could be coming to an end for a variety of reasons.

To make matters worse in Dallas, the team suffered one of its biggest setbacks of the year as Dereck Lively II went down with an ankle sprain a few games ago. With Gafford on the roster, he's generally been looked at as the backup five behind Lively II, but he has proven to be a shell of himself on the offensive end.

One of the reasons Gafford was brought to Dallas last season was to become one of Doncic's pick-and-roll targets. Through the first half of this season, Gafford has proven to be way less effective in the pick-and-roll than in the previous year as teams have honed in on shutting down this part of Dallas' game.

Despite this negative outlook, Gafford is still having one of his best offensive seasons in his career off the bench. Gafford has continued to be one of the league leaders in field goal efficiency and his post-up offense has been something fans love to watch.

With this in mind, fans expected Gafford to leap with his playmaking vision because of how great Dallas' 3-point shooting is and the options he can swing the ball to, but this has not been the case. Against the Thunder, Gafford recorded five turnovers due to OKC's relentless perimeter defense and ability to leave him hanging in space with the ball left in his hands or just swat the ball away from him.

This not only completely backfired for Dallas, but it also made Jason Kidd eat his pregame comments.

"Gaff has to dominate the paint," Kidd said in his pregame presser. "We've got to get the ball to him."

As a result, this created some sloppy offensive possessions and gave fans a reason to rethink Gafford's fit in a Mavs uniform. He also only shot the ball three times, and he was 2-3 from the free throw line. Dallas didn't feed Gafford the ball much inside, even after what Kidd said before the game.

The Thunder were without both of their top centers, and his overall fit against teams who have floor-stretching bigs is concerning due to his limitations when being forced to defend outside.

In addition to Gafford's offense looking sloppy at times, his defense has been a fraction of what it used to be. Gafford has occasionally been bullied down low for easy buckets inside and his rebounding has largely been inefficient as a result.

Since Gafford's alarming game against the Thunder, fans have been more at ease with the thought of losing him in a trade that makes sense. With Dallas' need for a backup four or a potential upgrade at the wing position, Gafford's time in Dallas could be cut short for the right name.