Coming into his second season in Dallas, Salah Mejri was looking to build on a productive rookie year. As measured by NBA experience, the 30-year-old Tunisian big man is young (prior to this season, Mejri had only logged 34 NBA games), so it was reasonable to expect his game to continue to grow.
In his 73 games this season, Mejri was mostly relegated to back-up duty, averaging 2.9 points and 4.2 rebounds in 12.4 minutes per game. His playing time hinged on Andrew Bogut’s health and coach Rick Carlisle’s lineup tinkering.
While per-36 minute numbers don’t tell the entire story, they are a good baseline in determining what a player would do with a larger workload, and Mejri’s numbers are fascinating through this lens.