Mavericks quietly roster a superstar-stopping defender no one is talking about

There may not be a more forgotten current Maverick than Caleb Martin. Seriously… he’s been in Dallas for a season and a half and still feels like an afterthought. But he’s not going anywhere anytime soon, and even though he hasn’t made much of an impact yet, there’s actually a pretty clear path for him to change that.

Caleb Martin’s defense is his path to a role with the Mavericks

It all starts on the defensive end. Martin is a legitimately solid defender, and Dallas desperately needed that a season ago. The Mavericks finished 19th in defensive rating, which doesn’t sound awful, but they gave up the 23rd-most points and ranked 24th in forcing turnovers. Their backcourt, in particular, was a mess defensively, putting constant pressure on the bigs to clean everything up.

Martin doesn’t really fix either of those problems. He’s not a guard, and he’s not someone who’s going to generate a ton of turnovers. Despite being 6-foot-5, he’s more of a true wing, and the most steals he’s ever averaged in a season is just 1.0.

Yet, that doesn’t mean Martin wouldn’t be a massive asset to the Mavericks’ defense. At 6-foot-5, with a 6-foot-10 wingspan, he's extremely versatile by nature. The 30-year-old can credibly defend up to four positions, and he showed that last season. According to CraftedNBA’s defensive versatility rating, he ranked 13th of 322 players who logged at least 750 minutes. And for context, no other Maverick cracked the top 100.

Martin also ranked 12th in CraftedNBA’s matchup difficulty rating, right alongside Ausar Thompson and Toumani Camara — two legitimately high-level defenders. Thompson finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting, while Camara earned second-team All-Defense honors last season. That’s some pretty good company.

Of course, Martin didn’t play nearly as much as Thompson or Camara. That’s why he wasn’t (and won't ever be) in the Defensive Player of the Year conversation or on an All-Defensive team, but it doesn’t make him any less valuable on that end.

How Martin brings value to the Mavericks’ defense

If you want a sense of Martin’s defensive versatility, just look at his top five matchups this season: Anthony Edwards, Victor Wembanyama, Jamal Murray, Jaylen Brown, and Kevin Durant. Wait… what? Yeah, that’s right. He was essentially tasked with guarding the opposing team’s best player, regardless of position. And he held each of those players to 50.0 percent shooting or worse from the field.

If anything, that alone says a lot about Martin’s defensive value. Dallas could definitely use someone who can go from guarding Edwards one night to Wembanyama the next. But here’s the thing, Martin is already a Maverick. That’s the good news. The issue is that he only played in 58 games this season and wasn’t really part of the regular rotation.

Martin’s limited role in a struggling Mavericks season

But it’s not really Martin’s fault. The 30-year-old wasn’t a central piece in Dallas’ rotation this season. The Mavericks were already loaded on the wing, and in a year where development and flexibility mattered more than locking in the best rotation, there wasn’t much room for him.

However, as Dallas looks to regain relevance, Martin becomes much more important. The Mavericks clearly want to get back to contention sooner rather than later, especially with a young centerpiece like Cooper Flagg and 34-year-old Kyrie Irving still in the mix. And when that happens (when matchups start actually mattering night to night again), Martin’s name is going to come up a lot more often.

As rough as the Mavericks were offensively, their defense wasn’t much better, which is how they ended up with just 26 wins. While Martin was part of that team, his presence was hardly felt. But as Dallas starts trending back toward winning basketball, they’ll at least have a borderline elite wing defender to lean on.

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