The Mavericks are beefing up

Plus what I'm looking at for Game 6.

Good morning. Free BG. Let’s basketball.

Majas on a Balcony, Francisco Goya, 1808-14

We have another trade in the Western Conference: the Rockets traded Christian Wood to the Mavericks for the No. 26 pick in next week’s NBA Draft, plus Boban Marjanovic, Trey Burke, Marquese Chriss and Sterling Brown. It is essentially Wood for the pick; I can’t imagine any of the named players stick in Houston, and I can’t imagine Dallas imagined using any of them in a real way next season. Dallas will absolutely use Wood.

For the Mavericks, this is an interesting twist on their need for secondary scoring. All his career, Wood has been a relatively high per-minute scorer with excellent efficiency. He creates a lot of his interior offense himself, but relies heavily on others to create his outside looks. That should work pretty well while Wood is on the court with Luka Doncic. It will probably behoove Wood, based on the Mavericks’ offense, to plan to take more threes than ever before. But he’s proven to be a good three-point shooter, including from the corners, so that should probably work out.

What the Mavericks need most is scorer who can handle the load when Luka sits.