{"id":395757,"date":"2026-08-02T19:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T19:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/395757\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T19:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T19:03:09","slug":"dallas-mavericks-second-round-pick-already-creating-believers-around-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/395757\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Mavericks Second-Round Pick Already Creating Believers Around NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6z\">The Dallas Mavericks left the 2026 NBA Draft with four players that they feel really good about, and all four players had strong contributions in the Summer League in Las Vegas. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"72\">While the headliners were first-round picks Morez Johnson Jr. and Sergio De Larrea, who each had big performances, second-round pick <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Ccj0KdUhXB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Vsevolod Ishchenko<\/a> could be the most intriguing of the bunch. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"75\">Ishchenko got more comfortable scoring as the Summer League progressed, but he was always moving without the ball, often guarded the other team&#8217;s best player, and showed the ability to put the ball on the floor. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"78\">Fans and draft analysts didn&#8217;t know a lot about Ishchenko because he played in a smaller league in Russia and wasn&#8217;t that productive, all things considered. While his raw stats of 9.6 PPG, 4.4 RPG, and 3.0 APG may not be that eye-popping, he left an impact on people around the NBA. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7b\">Keith Smith of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spotrac.com\/news\/_\/id\/3424\/2026-nba-western-conference-summer-league-notebook\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spotrac<\/a> does a great job of gathering intel while at Summer League, and multiple people told him they expect Vsevolod Ishchenko to turn into something. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7e\">&#8220;Don\u2019t sleep on Seva (Vsevolod Ishchenko),&#8221; A Mavericks executive told Smith. &#8220;It might be a year or so, but he\u2019s a player too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7h\">&#8220;Ishchenko might end up being a really good player too,\u201d an overseas scout told Smith. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7k\">Smith even said on his own admission that all of the Mavericks&#8217; draft picks this year &#8220;looked really good.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>What Do Mavericks Have Planned for Vsevolod Ishchenko?<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7u\">As intriguing as Ishchenko was in the Summer League, it&#8217;s looking unlikely that he&#8217;s in the Mavericks system this year. They&#8217;re already at 16 roster spots, so they have to waive or trade someone to be roster-compliant, and all of their two-way spots are currently filled. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7x\">They could always waive John Poulakidas from his two-way spot to make room, but Ishchenko is under contract overseas, and NBA rules dictate that teams can&#8217;t buy someone out of a contract to put that on a two-way deal. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"80\">Ishchenko could always buy his own contract out, but it may just be better for him to stay overseas another season to improve. It&#8217;d be better if he could go up a step in competition somehow, but he still just needs a little more development. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-13\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"83\">The Mavericks would love to have him in their system, and being on a two-way contract would be perfect for a guy like him, but the rules may dictate otherwise. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-14\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"86\">Sign up to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/mavericks\/onsi\/newsletter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">free newsletter<\/a> and follow us on <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/maverickssi?s=21&amp;t=nyCeWGVWMsSpULqWCupqGA\" rel=\"nofollow\">X<\/a> for the latest news.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Mavericks left the 2026 NBA Draft with four players that they feel really good about, and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-395757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}