Salah

Mejri

He’ll be a temporary replacement for Brandon Bass for team Liaoning in the CBA. The Mavs replaced Mejri with Boban Marjanovic this offseason and he drew little to no interest as an UFA.

Mejri will be an unrestricted free agent this summer, and he’s aware that adding a 3-point shot would boost his appeal. "[T]he workout for 45 minutes to an hour is based on threes,” Mejri said. “I’ve been working on them and I’m going to keep working on them.” He shot 11-of-34 from deep last season (32.4%), so this isn’t as far-fetched as other big men who try to develop court-stretching range.

Kleber has been fighting through a variety of injuries this season, so it’s not surprising to see him hit the sidelines for the second leg of this back-to-back with Wednesday’s matchup being completely meaningless. Salah Mejri will have the opportunity to get into the rotation tonight with Kleber on the sidelines, but he can’t be considered anything more than a low-end punt play in DFS.

Mejri scored 16 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, and did it in a variety of ways. He was hitting step-back threes, connecting on alley-oops and crashing the offensive glass. It’s truly a new world when Salah Mejri is taking a making tough triples. Give him a look in your lineups in the last two games.

This is not an April Fool’s joke. Mejri set new season-highs in points, boards and threes, while matching season-high in dimes. He hasn’t been playing consistent minutes lately, but he rewarded anyone that took a chance on him tonight.

He did not play in the last two games with an illness keeping him out on Saturday. Mejri is only a situational option at the five and can’t be counted on while Dwight Powell or Maxi Kleber are active.

The Mavs have used him situationally in the rotation, so without him it’ll be Maxi Kleber backing up Dwight Powell at the five. Kleber should be owned in standard leagues while Powell gets a little longer leash as a must-own player.

This was predictable with Maxi Kleber (knee) back in the lineup tonight, and there’s no reason to own Mejri anywhere.

“Three weeks ago I got with him and talked to him about working on [a 3-pointer], because there are many alignments now in the league where the [center] is spotted in the corner, and in some cases open from beyond the arc,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “It’s such an important weapon to have.” Entering this season, Mejri’s career-high in 3-pointers taken was 3, which is something he’s matched in his last two games alone. He made the second triple of his career two games ago and is worth a look for center-needy owners in super-deep leagues.

It was likely just to combat Hassan Whiteside in the first unit. Maybe Mejri gets a start against Rudy Gobert on Feb. 23, but you’re obviously not going to hold him long enough to find out.