The NBA season is officially over as the Celtics beat the Mavericks in a decidedly uncompelling Finals. Not to diminish Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown but I found myself choosing to watch only the 2nd half of games, then switching to WNBA games, and during game five, I watched Bridgerton. The Finals rapidly became an expected conclusion.
But there is an NBA player from the Finals who has been on my mind – Daniel Gafford.
You might be asking '“Who?” Or perhaps “Him?” Yup. When I watched the Finals it was to see what Daniel Gafford was up to. Gafford was traded to the Mavericks in February from the Washington Wizards, which means that until mid-February, I had seen Gafford play 45 games. Like most of the Wizards roster, I had not heard of him before I started watching this season. He was steady as a rock, getting lobs, alley-oops, dunks, rebounds. He was reliably the second best Wizard every game while Kuzma, Poole, Kispert, Avdija and Jones fluctuated from top player to middle of the pack. Gafford is the kind of player who has been missing from the Warriors roster in recent years. A center who is correctly sized for the position. Who can get a momentum changing dunk easily. Who can block shots against players of all heights. Every game something Gafford did led me to exclaim “He’s pretty good” to no one else in the room. (And to be clear, saying something is “pretty good” is the highest form of praise in my family). I was bummed when he was traded.
Here’s Gafford on the Wizards - I mean, 3 blocks in a possession?
And then in the Western Conference Finals:
Gafford went from being on one of the worst teams in the league to a strong team on the rise, playing with one of the hottest stars in Luka Dončić and one of the most mercurial stars in Kyrie Irving. The announcers treated him like a revelation - “This Daniel Gafford can really play!” “Gafford is making an immediate difference.” It turns out the national announcers weren’t watching the Wizards much either. He went from ignored on a rarely winning team to on a team going to the playoffs, then the Western Conference Finals, and the NBA Finals. Some perspective: after he was traded on Feb 8th, the Mavericks went on to win 34 games. The Wizards won 6 more games. In Gafford’s entire career, he had never been on a team that won more than 35 games all season. It’s been a huge change in circumstance and in visibility for him.
He isn’t any different - his situation is. He’s on a team that needs him to be exactly who he is and with the right players around him to win more games. I don’t know if he likes playing for Dallas or living in Dallas or even if he actually moved to Dallas - but who doesn’t like winning? This level of play on this stage will be worth a lot of money on his next contract. He’s an overnight sensation who’s been doing this for 4 years, just on national tv now.
For most players in the NBA, this is their experience. They are not the franchise player who the team is built around. They are there to fill a role, and their value is in how well they can do that. Gafford fits what Dallas needs and all of the sudden he’s a genius. Knowing your role is the transition that all NBA players must make, unless you are Victor Wembanyama, LeBron James, Steph Curry. This is easier said than done. The other common experience of an NBA player is they have generally been the best middle school, high school and college player on their team. Their dream comes true and now they have to be the 10th man on the roster. Their egos and their confidence are a large part of what has made them successful and now to be successful, they are asked to set their egos aside.
Here’s Draymond Green talking about that during summer practice runs last year. The video is NSFW so a cleaned up quote would say “there’s only 2 people on a team who can do what they want to do and 13 others have to fill a role.”
Draymond’s entire career is about doing that well. He says when he came to the Warriors it was clear that supporting Steph, making things easy for Steph, being the heavy for Steph was the main job. Draymond has done this so well that he is seen as indispensable to the team in spite of his significant liabilities. Curry has repeatedly said that the offense, which has a steep learning curve, doesn’t work without Draymond. He is the person who makes it all flow.
Or here’s UConn Coach Geno Auriemma giving advice to Nika Mühl just before she left to be a rookie with the Seattle Storm.
“Figure out what you gotta do to make the team. And then you just do that.”
On a side note, I love this clip with Geno. He is a crusty, unemotional coach. Sarcasm is his love language. The earnestness between him and Nika is endearing. She is from Croatia, and the UConn coaches had an even bigger role in her life because her parents were not around. Geno came with her to the WNBA draft because her family could not. She says she still talks to Auriemma every day.
A few more Wizards/Warriors examples. Jonathan Kuminga had an unclear role all last year. He repeatedly said that he didn’t know what Kerr wanted him to do, why he got minutes on the floor or why he got pulled from the floor. Once he went to the media about it, his role got a lot clearer. In the post-season press conference, Coach Kerr was very specific about what he wanted to see from Kuminga next year. Klay Thompson’s role changed this year to being a small forward, to passing more, to driving to the basket at least occasionally. To being ok with not always starting. And although Thompson took a lot of heat in the media and from fans for grumbling about not starting, the stats speak differently. He did well going back and forth between starting and not starting.
Then there’s Gary Payton II, with an extremely clear role of the high energy guy, the good vibes guy, both on the court and off. Guard full court, cut to the basket, get all the rebounds you can, smile the whole time. Small minutes, big impact. He knows exactly what he’s there to do.
Jordan Poole had a version of this happen to him this year. A lot was made of his getting benched but I see it as solidifying his role. In the first half of the season, he started mostly as a shooting guard and it wasn’t a great fit. He tried sometimes too hard to fit the role but it wasn’t natural. And since he was one of the two franchise players, they had an adjustment to make. He started coming off the bench, but it was so that he could always be the point guard. When he moved back to a starting role again, it was as point guard. Once his role was clear - to him, his teammates and their new coach, his performance picked up dramatically.
Sometimes the role doesn’t even have to do with time on the floor. Take Anthony Gill on the Wizards. A player I fully expect none of you know. He is the oldest player on a young team. He carries the role of helping newer players learn how to be a professional. He wins team awards for best player in the locker room. He is constantly hyping players up. He kneels on the sideline the entire game - is he giving up his seat for others? An injury that makes it hard to sit? Is it so he can see the action better? Whatever the reason, it feels sacrificial. He is the first to give a high five, to approach a player doing well or doing poorly. And his teammates love him for it. Regardless of his basketball skills, his job on the team is the steady hand, the hype man.
Or there’s Andre Iguodala last year on the Warriors. He played in 8 games last season, averaging 2.1 points, injured and rehabbing most of the season. He was still extremely valuable to the team in his role coaching up younger players, especially Moody and Kuminga. Chris Paul took some of that role this year and the Warriors have loved him for it.
Back to Daniel Gafford one last time. While knowing your role is important, you also need a tremendous amount of luck to end up on a team that needs what you have when you are capable of doing it. With that kind of luck maybe everyone could have the same sudden rise as Gafford. It might mean in the right circumstances we can all be shining stars. The trick is, what do we do in the meantime so we are ready for it when it comes? And what happens if, gulp, the right circumstance never comes? (That’s a subject for a different day, but start with the career of Kevon Looney.)
Which brings me to the second half of that Draymond Green clip. He chews out everyone for not running hard, for him being able to beat people in a sprint. He says that what you do now, in the summer, when nothing is on the line, trains you so that you are able to get to the end, and that teams lose because they can’t get to the end. That’s what happened to the Mavericks. Not enough players knew what it took - only Kyrie had been there before. The Celtics had been there and lost in 2022. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Green knew what it took, knew how hard it was, and were absolutely ready for the end.
It’s the summer. What are you doing now, when there are no cameras, in your metaphorical equivalent of a high school gym, to be ready?
The Timeout Books: (books I read during the timeouts and halftimes) - none this time, sadly
A Game At A Time Playlist (the songs that pop in my head while writing this)