I’m the idiot still watching Mavericks games. Some of this is leftover affection for a team that no longer exists—those post-title squads, particularly the ones that featured Monta Ellis, played with such beautiful fluidity—and some of it is madness. Reporting from a couch-shaped abyss, I can confirm for folks who are spending their time the Blazers or Rockets or a volume of James Baldwin that what you’re missing out on is esoterica, given how deep the Mavs are buried in the standings, and heroic tanking, which explains the Mavs’ record. There’s nothing secretly great about them, though some faintly interesting stuff has happened in Dallas over the course of the season.

Nerlens Noel turned down a four-year contract worth $70 million last summer, fell out of the rotation in November, got thumb surgery in December, and rejoined the bench a month ago, chipping in minimally while evoking the dazed sadness of somebody who left $60 million in the pocket of the jeans he just washed. All six-foot-nothing of Yogi Ferrell has played nearly all of his minutes at shooting guard and small forward, such is Rick Carlisle’s affection for three-guard and dual small guard lineups. Harrison Barnes is immutably Harrison Barnes. There was some buzz when he left the Warriors in 2016 that he might remake himself into a mildly entertaining good stats/bad team guy, and he’s spent the past two seasons smothering it. I was going to make a crack here about Barnes being Rudy Gay with a tech stock portfolio, but then I checked Basketball Reference to compare their stats and, uh, here are Barnes’s Mavs averages vs. Gay’s prime: 19 PPG vs. 19.6 PPG, 54.1 TS% vs. 53.3 TS%, 5.6 RPG vs. 6 RPG. Their usage rates are 25.2 and 25.4, respectively. They’re the same damn player. 

Minor curiosities aside, the only thing worth paying special attention to during Mavs games is Dennis Smith. On a squad populated by veteran also-rans, Carlisle-optimized bench guys, and a thoroughly aged Dirk Nowitzki, Smith stands out as someone who could become a star in a couple years. He already carries himself like one, and he dominates the ball when he’s on the court like Dame Lillard without the range, or Kemba Walker without the, ahem, range. Smith’s a dreadful shooter at this early stage of his career. His quickness and strength make him a terror at the rim—60 percent for the season from inside three feet—but opposing teams don’t have to worry about him much when he’s outside the paint and his shooting numbers aren’t helped by the fact that he has to create most of his shots by himself. On catch-and-shoot threes, he’s 36.5 percent. Off the dribble, he’s 28.5 percent. He could use some help.

Defensively, Smith has navigational problems. When his man enters traffic, he has a tendency, as a lot of rookies do, to visibly puzzle over whether he’s supposed to follow his assignment or pass him off to a teammate. This makes him a step late picking up cutters and results in the odd wide open three. He also gets caught ball-watching from time to time, especially when an opposing big is backing down a teammate. He often drifts into a defensive no man’s land where he’s only kinda-sorta helping onto the big and is way too far away from the shooter he’s responsible for. Smith is never going to be Patrick Beverley, but right now he’s struggling with standard new-to-the-NBA issues. I’m sure Rick Carlisle harps on these mistakes in film study. Smith will make fewer of them in time. 

He’s shown some other, subtler improvements. Smith has been working with God Shammgod on his dribbling, and it shows: he’s got a nice crossover step-back move that might be devastating if and when he cleans up his jumper. He makes smart reads on set plays that suggest his playmaking ability will swell as he gets more acclimated to the speed of the professional game. He has also been nearly injury-free, which is important considering he tore his ACL in high school. 

Smith’s rookie year stands out for how typical it is—considerable promise, encouraging developments, lots of tightening and polishing to be done—against the spectacular seasons Ben Simmons (16-8-8 on 55.2 TS%) and Donovan Mitchell (carrying the Jazz offense with a 20-and-4) are having. Both of those guys are a year older than Smith, but they’re no more experienced and have been exceptional in taking to the NBA so swiftly. Plus they’re on better teams, so they get more attention. (The same can be said for Jayson Tatum, who has tailed off a bit but is making an impressive debut overall.) The normal thing, even for future stars to do, is to toil in obscurity for at least a year before breaking out. Russell Westbrook shot a tick under forty percent for a terrible Thunder squad. Steph Curry was a no-defense microwave whose numbers were inflated by the miserably fun Late Don Nelson Era Warriors playing at what would still be considered a dead sprint in today’s NBA. Chris Paul was solid his rookie season, because Chris Paul has never done anything in his life at less than a B-minus level of competency, but his Hornets were deeply mediocre.

So Dennis Smith is in good company, if lagging behind a few of his peers. He’s putting in the work, screwing up, and learning the hard way. Once in a while, he’ll throw down a dunk that breaks Twitter. Someday soon, maybe, he’ll take it to Kyrie Irving in a nationally televised game and people will realize wow, Dennis Smith’s really putting it all together. In the meantime, if you’re an idiot watching Mavs games, you’re in on the ground floor, seeing the progress before anybody else does. Though there are inarguably better ways to invest your energy, it is still an investment. When it pays out, it pays out small. 18-and-11 in a win over the Nuggets a few weeks ago, for instance. But it’s March; most of the league is merely passing time until the playoffs, which is why it’s rewarding to watch a sensationally athletic rookie guard stumble and thrill and grow. It’s the furious, turbulent beginning of a story that’s going somewhere we can only wonder about. Game by game, Smith reveals another turn.