Dallas Mavs Coach Jason Kidd Still Navigating New Roster Challenges

The Dallas Mavericks added a lot of new, and arguably better, talent over the offseason, but it might take head coach Jason Kidd some time to finalize his rotations.

The Dallas Mavericks made several move over the offseason to enhance their roster, acquiring Grant Williams, Dereck Lively II, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, Seth Curry and a handful of others. Just because the Mavs are now better on paper, though, doesn't necessarily mean that their chemistry will be fully established before the season begins in less than three weeks from now.

After a 111-99 preseason-opening loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday, Mavs head coach Jason Kidd preached patience as he and his staff continue to get a feel for the new guys on the roster. After all, this is the NBA preseason, which is the perfect time to experiment while the games don't count.

"When you look at the new pieces that we have, the limited time that we've been together, [the defense] is not gonna look good," Kidd said. "But there were stretches there where we did play pretty good defense. It all comes down to being able to rebound the ball, and we struggled there early. But some different rotations, some different combinations, we did a really good job of rebounding the ball.

After two years with mixed results, Jason Kidd is entering his third season as head coach of the Dallas Mavericks / Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

"Also getting off to a slow start offensively just put us in a bad situation mentally. We've gotta get better at understanding that some nights we're not just gonna have to rely on our offense. We've gotta play defense if we want to win."

Although the Mavs got off to a rough start in their first preseason game, Kidd isn't worried about his team. The talent is there, but now it's all about him getting those pieces to mesh together as best he can.

“This is a long journey, a long season and we’re just at the beginning,” Kidd said. “We wanted to see the younger guys. [Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving] played their minutes. Luka loves to play, Kai loves to play, but also there’s a sense of trying to get as much [roster knowledge] as we can here.”

Not only is Kidd trying to get a sense for what his regular-season rotations should be, but the Mavs are also trying to decide what to do with their last two-way contract spot, with players like Jordan "Jelly" Walker, Greg Brown III and Dexter Dennis all fighting for it.

The Mavs take on the T-Wolves for the second and final time this preseason on Saturday at 11 a.m. CT on NBA TV. That game will conclude the NBA's Abu Dhabi Game series, and the Mavs will then travel to Spain to take on Doncic's former club Real Madrid in a friendly exhibition match.

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