Santi Aldama

So if you look at what's happened since he's become the GM, and obviously Masai Ujiri's Also interested in international players.

But, you know, they traded for Santi Aldama, who's still not playing after he had knee surgery in the offseason.

They traded for Zachary Richichet.

And they moved up in the draft to get Sergio de la Rea.

And speaking of Derek Lively, we still do not have any sort of timeline as to when his return will be.

Same thing could be said for Santi Aldama.

It was reported yesterday that we don't know if he will be available on Wednesday night.

Okay, that's per Dusty May.

And, you know, that's...

both good and bad, right? Because, you know, if he shows up healthy and returns to his impactful play this season, right, that's a really great audition for a pretty decent size contract extension next summer where, you know, it could be anywhere from 15 to 25 million or something like that.

Or, He could realize that someone like Santi Aldama and Mores Johnson Jr. who do different things at the five than what we've typically seen from Lively and Gafford.

Well, maybe he sees that and...

And a couple of these guys are not playing right now.

And I'm going to get in that in a second because I think that Santi Aldama, Caleb Martin, maybe some others will be taking away some of these guys' minutes.

But for now, I think Marcus Asser and Sergio de la Rea can get more minutes, especially if Cooper Flagg's going to miss time, especially if Kyrie Irving's going to miss time.

But if those guys come back and are healthy, then the guys who are going to lose the most time is Max Christie and Zachary Richerche.

CallSheet.

Trade on anything.

What happens when Santi Aldama and Caleb Martin come back though? Caleb Martin's been out with this thumb thing.

Santi Aldama's been out with these surgery, the surgery issues.

Love him as a human being, but he's street close.

My seven is Santi Aldama because when he gets back on the court, we're going to.

Play him at the five, and he's going to be chucking threes.

Hey, on a scale of one to ten, Santi Aldama is a rich man's Maxi Clever.

But the problem is he's a rich man's Maxi Clever.

I keep referencing him as Rafe LaFrance, and I don't know if it's just because I disrespect that.

that...

Did you say he was 7'3"? Yeah,

Mavericks lineup still is definitely a little weird, I'd say.

Um, but I guess in a way it's injuries early on the season have helped out things, you know, like Santi, we'll look at injuries here at the bottom here of the hoop side death chart.

Santi Aldama and Derek Wiley being out early kind of makes that power forward and center room a lot clearer early on.

Um, I would expect Santiago Dama to work his way into the rotation once he's healthy, just because he adds size and shooting.

And the Mavericks could definitely use shooting in their lineup early.

Lively is just, I mean, was a promising young center.

But if you add some three-point shooting, whether it's out of necessity or whether he's actually out of that tool in his toolbox, it would be fantastic.

But I think clearly he's going to play right now.

And one thing I do want to talk about this game is the breath of fresh air that I saw watching this game.

And if y'all don't know what I mean, basically last year when we played the Warriors early in the season, There was that hard foul that Draymond committed on Santi Aldama in the fast break.

And Santi and Jaren just kind of let Draymond talk his way and have his way with them.

And it led to us actually blowing the lead at that time.

Will Najee Marshall be a rest of season hold? Look, maybe.

He's a bit like Santi Aldama.

who is injured at the moment, I know that, but he's a bit like Santi Aldama in that he just finds a way to play.

So anyone gets injured, he plays a little bit more.

He's pretty versatile, so he can play a number of positions.