Kidd must make tough Jaden Hardy change to save him from being Mavericks' trade bait

Excitement has been reinvigorated into the Dallas Mavericks and their fanbase with the NBA Draft fast approaching on June 25, as the Mavericks will officially select consensus No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg out of Duke University. The fact that the Mavericks won the No. 1 pick after never moving up in the NBA Draft Lottery in franchise history still feels surreal, especially in a draft where the No. 1 pick could be a generational talent.

The Mavericks now need to capitalize on this good fortune, given the roster they have, as by no means does getting Flagg warrant the Mavericks tanking, given the position they are in post-Luka Doncic trade, and with the veterans on this roster. The success of next season will largely depend on Dallas' guard play with Kyrie Irving expected to miss more than half of next season as he rehabs a torn ACL, and while the Mavericks will try to address this issue in the transaction cycle this offseason, the play of young guards Brandon Williams and Jaden Hardy will be a huge factor in Dallas' success this season as well.

While Williams stood-out at the end of last season so much that it's very plausible he'll be in Dallas' guard rotation after they add another guard this offseason, even when Irving returns to the lineup, Hardy hasn't shown much improvement through three years in Dallas, and head coach Jason Kidd must play Hardy more at shooting guard to fully optimize him and save him from being traded by next season's deadline.

Jason Kidd needs to play Jaden Hardy off-ball more often

Of Hardy's 193 3-pointers attempted last season, he shot 150 of them off the catch, as he shot 40.7 percent off the catch from outside and 39.4 percent from outside overall. Hardy is clearly most comfortable shooting off the catch from downtown, and while he can occasionally step into a 3-pointer off the dribble, he struggles to create those opportunities consistently against solid point-of-attack defense.

Hardy has a decent handle, and he can blow by defenders in isolation situations when he's getting downhill off dribble combos, but his handle hasn't progressed to the level of being able to consistently manipulate defenses and score at all three-levels as the main shot creator on the floor, as he's been far better in Dallas being an aggressive attacker off closeouts and as a spot-up shooter.

Given Hardy's guard skills and size at 6-foot-4, he's a unique option off-ball that can create his own offense in advantageous scenarios, but he's far better suited to be a secondary option because of how well he shoots off the catch as well as the spacing it provides him. He often had some of his best shooting games in the regular season when Irving and Williams were consistently applying pressure on defenses alongside him in the lineup as well.

With Hardy entering the first year of a three-year $18 million deal he inked with Dallas before last season on an extension, he has a fairly tradable contract going forward, and while he's by no means a terrible player and has had stretches where he's looked dynamic offensively, his playmaking and shot creation hasn't progressed to the point where Dallas would turn a blind eye to other teams making calls on him.

With how much the injury bug plagued the Mavericks last season as well as them moving off their primary offensive initiator in Doncic before the trade deadline, it's understandable why Kidd had to play Hardy a lot more as the primary point guard on the floor, but he needs to play him alongside another shot creator more often going forward.

The Mavericks would probably move off Hardy in the right deal to acquire a starting-level guard if the other team pressed Dallas on including him in the deal, but the Mavericks would also likely want to see Hardy develop a little further next season and prove himself more as a playmaker and on the defensive end given the contract extension they gave him last summer, so Kidd has to best optimize Hardy as a shooting guard if he returns to the lineup next season.