USA TODAY Sports

O-Max Prosper's Development Could Help Mavs' Size Issues

Originally posted on FanNation Dallas Basketball
By Dalton Trigg | Last updated 11/5/23

The Dallas Mavericks showed some grit in Friday's 125-114 loss to the defending-champion Denver Nuggets, clawing back and cutting a 20-point deficit to single digits with about four minutes remaining before Nikola Jokic put them away for good.

Luka Doncic's career-high tying nine turnovers was a big reason the Mavs weren't able to get over the hump, but the bigger issue was Dallas' overall lack of size on its roster compared to Denver. The Mavs ended up losing the rebounding battle 51-34, with Jokic, Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon nearly out-rebounding Dallas themselves with 31 rebounds combined.

Aside from making trades for bigger wings and backup-center depth, there's really only one in-house way for the Mavs to chip away at their size issue, and that's to accelerate the development of 21-year-old rookie Olivier-Maxence Prosper. So far, though five games, the No. 24 pick in this year's draft has only played one minute of action, which came in garbage time of the loss to Denver.

The 6-8 defensive-minded forward was initially expected to have more of an immediate impact for the Mavs than fellow rookie Dereck Lively II after he showed a lot of promise during the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas over the summer. However, Lively made a big jump during the gap between Summer League and training camp, earning the opportunity to start in every game except for the season opener so far.

"I plan on having a significant impact," Prosper told DallasBasketball.com before the season began. "I want to come in and be a guy that's in the rotation and contributes to winning. That's my outlook for my season. [Be] a guy that's coming in and asked to guard the best player on the other side. And a guy that's going to, every game, get better and improve, and get the confidence of his coaches and teammates. And then, end the end, [I'm] going to be a big contributor to this team's success. That's the way I look at my season."

Given that the Mavs are 4-1 heading into Sunday night's matchup with the Charlotte Hornets, there's no real urgency for head coach Jason Kidd to throw Prosper into the mix yet. However, if Dallas finds itself in another situation like Friday night, getting walloped on the boards and in the paint ... it might not hurt to throw Prosper in there just to see if he can provide a similar jolt that Lively has so far. One thing is for sure, Prosper has the physical build to potentially make more of a difference than most rookie wings would.