NBA Insider Marc Stein Says Undrafted Mavs Guard Ryan Nembhard Is Playing Like a First Round Pick

NBA Insider Marc Stein Says Undrafted Mavs Guard Ryan Nembhard Is Playing Like a First Round Pick

Uh, speaking of Happy Stein, uh, this is a Mavericky not only happy with the win, but they’re happy they’re going to have some time off. In fact, they don’t get on the floor until Friday when they take on the Brooklyn Nets here in Dallas. Uh, as best as you can, can you kind of outline what the next five, six days uh, could potentially look like for this team, which I’m sure it will involve a lot of rest. They’re going to definitely take tomorrow off and then during the week they will take one full day off and otherwise practice three times before the Nets come to town. That was the way it was explained to me. So they will have practice time in the middle of the season. Yeah. So that that that’s the thing. That’s why you don’t want to that’s why you don’t want to take that’s why you don’t want to make it like three days worth of rest because you also don’t get these opportunities during the season. So again, tomorrow completely off. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. One of those days will be off. Three full practices and at least one pretty strenuous one. And then they got the Nets in here. Yeah, you don’t find a lot of practice time during the um during the regular season. So, three practices in a week is I mean, might as well be training camp all over again at that rate. Uh, anything else that stood out from you tonight before we let you go on this Saturday evening? I mean, AD obviously great bounceback game. I think he had to point to prove and did so. And that guard combination like we’ve talked. So, I mean, we long before the season we talked about playmaking, ball handling, dribbling, passing, on ball creation, and you heard Jason Kid tonight. I’m sure Ron probably mentioned how Jason Kidd called Brandon Williams a Ferrari in terms of the speed injection he brings off the bench. And they’ve just got an interesting combo with Ryan Nebard on a two-way Brandon Williams who started last season on a two-way. They’ve fashioned a two-prong point guard situation 20some games into the season. If I am allowed a selfish plug, I would ask you to read my Ryan Nebard feature on my Substack if you haven’t already. I I put a lot into it and I think that I really it’s been, you know, I get I’ve been getting this question so much. How how on how do how do it it wasn’t 60 guys. There were only 59 in the June draft, but how do 59 guys get picked ahead of Ryan Nebard? And I went into great detail to kind of explain that look late in the second round in the 50s, there were teams that wanted to draft him at that point. At that point, having lasted until the 50s, and he knew how bad the Maverick the Mavericks had been chasing Nebart since the Chicago pre-draft camp. And my story kind of explains all that, goes into what his draft night was like, but really at at the at the end of the second round, Ryan Nebard and his agents, Jafar Tufani and Todd Ramasar, they were getting calls from teams, we want to draft your guy. And at that point in the draft, they were saying, no, we’d rather be undrafted. We know we have a two-way waiting in Dallas. He wanted to end up in Dallas. And for a franchise, not for a franchise that I think we can politely say not a lot has gone right over the past 9 10 months, the Ryan Nebard story is is a good story and one where the chips did the Chips definitely did fall the Maverick’s way. a couple other notable former Mavs uh whom are represented by Todd Ramazar or I guess whom Todd Ramazar represents uh AJ Lawson, longtime Mavs 2-way player and then on a a full-time contract. Uh and how about Omax Prosper and of course at the time on draft night Omax was still on the team. Yeah, hell of a job by the scouting department. Um, you know, with especially I mean Brandon Williams last year, now Ryan Imhard this year. Um, hell of a job by them to be able to to find a gym like this. Uh, it’s funny because you mentioned, you know, some of the stuff with the pregraft workout, Emma Odoka said during his um pregame availability comments, they the Rockets loved him, but one of the things that, you know, kind of dissuaded them based off of how they felt about their team going into the year was uh his size. And it wasn’t about anything about the player himself. It’s just they felt like, you know, from a size perspective, it just wasn’t the, you know, the right fit. So, I said back, I think it was the either the night of the draft or the day after, I said if he was like two inches taller, he’d have been a first- round pick. Yeah. Um, so again, and look, he’s been But he’s been playing, but he’s been playing like a first round pick. Oh, yeah. For sure. It It’s only been five, six games. We can’t get too carried away, but you see by the way he carries himself on the floor, he believes it’s going to continue. He is unflapable out there. You know, Jason Kid said over and over the calm that he brings to running a team. You know, Ryan Nebard believes this is not just some five, six game flash that this is, you know, he believes he can do this. And I’m actually I’m glad you brought that stuff out stuff up about Eay. I I missed his pregame press conference. I’m going to have to go back and and listen to that cuz yeah, I think obviously the size, you know, worked against him with a lot of front offices and I think there’s a lot of people that are saying, you know what, maybe we miscalculated There.

NBA insider Marc Stein breaks down the surging rise of Ryan Nembhard, saying the Dallas Mavericks rookie is “playing like a first-round pick” after the Mavs dominated the Houston Rockets.

This clip from the DLLS Mavs Podcast features hosts Kevin Gray, Bobby Karalla, and Ron Harrod Jr. as they discuss why Nembhard’s pace, decision-making, and confidence are skyrocketing — and why he might be one of the steals of the NBA season.

👉 Subscribe for more Mavs analysis, postgame reactions, and insider breakdowns from Kevin Gray, Bobby Karalla, Ron Harrod Jr., and Marc Stein.

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