The Mavericks’ bench is only 20th best in the NBA, says CBS

The Dallas Mavericks fall into the bottom half of the NBA with the 20th-best bench unit in the league, says CBS Sports in a new ranking of second units around the league.

This comes after CBS ranked starting units, ranking the Mavericks’ top five as 13th overall. Once again, Dallas has plenty of changes coming into the season with their second unit, ones they’ll have to adjust to this year.

Here’s what CBS said about the Mavericks:

Dallas' bench remains just OK. Devin Harris and J.J. Barea are fine players but they only bring so much to the table. Quincy Acy's energy is a nice addition but he's a pretty limited offensive player. The Mavs' only hope for their second unit is if Justin Anderson and Dwight Powell take a noticeable jump in their respective games."

In the entirety when comparing with last season; Raymond Felton, David Lee, JaVale McGee, Charlie Villanueva, and Jeremy Evans are no longer part of the Dallas franchise. The new-look bench features a different variety of recently signed or drafted players such as Quincy Acy, Seth Curry, Jonathan Gibson, A.J Hammons and a bunch of other players who are on partially-guaranteed contracts and may live to only see the daytime of the D-League.

There are reasons to be optimistic with the second unit, particularly with youth and improvement from Justin Anderson and Dwight Powell. J.J Barea has showed time and time again that he can be deadly lethal, as his late regular-season stretch last season proved that. Several signings such as Acy, Curry or Gibson help revamp bench depth even further. One thing that is for sure, though, is that this season’s bench will be intriguing to look at.

The Mavs are ranked in No. 11 in the Western Conference, and they came in No. 4 overall within the Southwest division. Only time will determine to which standards the bench unit will live up to.