Grading every move the Dallas Mavericks made at the trade deadline

6. Trading away Grant Williams

Grant Williams’ time in Dallas came to a very anticlimactic end. The fifth year forward was poised to take a leap in his overall game after signing with Dallas on a four-year $54 million contract this past offseason.

However, despite some flashes of looking like the player that Dallas signed-and-traded for as well as some hot shooting from distance to start the season, Williams ultimately did not bring the level of 3-and-D capability that Mavericks fans hoped for. Williams averaged 8.1 points and 3.6 rebounds per game on 41.3/37.6/74.5  shooting splits in 47 games played for Dallas this season, but counting stats don’t tell the whole story in regard to how inconsistent Williams was for the Mavericks.

Williams grew to become an extremely streaky shooter in Dallas, as he’d occasionally have games where he shot the lights out from 3-point range, but also had plenty more games where he looked like a fringe NBA player on offense.

Williams’ stout body was helpful for the Mavericks defense throughout certain stretches to start the season, but having never played in a starting role before, we quickly saw Williams’ defense depreciate over time as he was often exploited for being too slow and heavy-footed against quicker offensive players as Dallas’ season progressed.

Williams was also labeled as an individual who "rubbed a lot of people the wrong way" in the Dallas organization per ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, so it’s good that Dallas was able to move off of his contract before it depreciated in value even further. Dallas gets an A- for getting off of Williams’ contract when they did, but they don’t get a full A+ because they relinquished a first-round pick swap (2030) to San Antonio when they sign-an-traded for Williams.