Ahead of the 2019-20 NBA season, we answer the five biggest questions about the Dallas Mavericks.
1. Explain how the Mavericks turn this roster into an above-average defense.
Five words: Boban Marjanovic and Kristaps Porzingis. In an era where the majority of the league is going small, the Dallas Mavericks have two 7-foot-3 players at their disposal. Marjanovic isn’t what anyone would call light on his feet, but just his sheer size makes him a deterrent around the basket. Porzingis, on the other hand, has shown that he has the agility and quickness to defend several positions on the court and is one of the best weak-side rim protectors in the league today.
If this team is going to get to above-average levels on defense, it will start with their two tallest players anchoring them on that side of the ball. They could even potentially share the floor for stretches. Can they keep their heads above water or stop teams from attempting to exploit their Twin Towers lineup?
Luka Doncic is never going to be a great perimeter defender, but he’s smart enough to place himself in the right spots at the right time. Delon Wright joins the team by way of Memphis and Toronto, and they’ll be counting on him to defend most point guards. The rest of the roster is a hodgepodge of guards, wings and forwards who aren’t exactly known for their defensive acumen.
In the end, their defense will revolve around what Marjanovic and Porzingis can do for them. If either is able to show they have the goods, then Dallas could find itself in contention for a playoff spot in the final games of the season.
2. Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis go together like _____ and _______.
Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis go together like cereal and milk. On their own, each is perfectly capable of being a suitable choice as a standalone item, but when they are brought together they create something even better.
Doncic proved that he can stand on his own two feet when he ran away with the Rookie of the Year award a season ago. He singlehandedly powered the Mavericks to a respectable offense and was the rare rookie to receive Rick Carlisle’s blessing to run the show.
Porzingis similarly put the league on notice early that he was a force to be reckoned with. He came into his own in 2017, but missed all of last season while rehabbing from a torn ACL he suffered in February 2018.
Now the two solo acts get to come together and make a collaboration album. Will we get What a Time to be Alive, Watch the Throne or even The Grey Album? Or will they underwhelm and produce something along the lines of Eddie Murphy and Michael Jackson‘s 1993 single “Whatzupwitu”?
Just like there are cereals that milk accentuates (Cinnamon Toast Crunch) and others that it just overpowers (Kix) it will be interesting to see just how these two are able to coexist on the court. In theory, they should be a perfect match. Doncic is at his best as a pick-and-roll ball-handler and Porzingis is a dynamic pick-and-pop big. If they mesh, they will rank among the best duos in the NBA.
3. How many shots should Tim Hardaway Jr. be taking on this team?
This is tough. In my honest opinion, the answer is somewhere between zero and nine. I’m not a Tim Hardaway Jr. fan and haven’t been dating back to his days as a Michigan Wolverine. However, the roster construction of this team called for someone to be able to create their own offense outside of Doncic and Porzingis.
In spite of my personal feelings, Hardaway has shown that he can get himself in spots to score the ball. Opponents will be locked in on slowing down the dynamic duo, that things could definitely open up for Hardaway.
As long as he plays within the structure of the offense and doesn’t hunt shots as he did during his time with the New York Knicks, then this situation could be ripe for him to do damage in a big way.
Efficiency is going to be huge for him. His career effective field goal percentage is 50.2, but he hasn’t been above 50 since his final season with the Atlanta Hawks in 2016-17. In 19 games with the Mavericks he got it up to 49.6 percent, which is a welcoming sign, but he’ll need to get it back up and above 50 percent in order to be a real contributor to this team.
4. Who is making the spot-up 3-pointers on this team, besides Seth Curry?
Tim Cato of The Athletic reported that a “4-point line” had been added to the team’s practice courts this year and that players who spent the summer working out in Dallas had grown accustomed to taking perimeter shots from a slightly deeper than normal vantage point.
Still, just because they shot them in practice doesn’t mean that it will translate to the court. Looking over the roster, it is tough to pinpoint the players who will pull defenders away from the paint as spot-up shooters.
The player they will really need to exploit this will be Porzingis. The last time we saw him on the court in 2017-18, he accrued an effective field goal percentage of 57 on catch-and-shoot opportunities, including 41 percent on 3-pointers.
The downside is that the Mavericks won’t want to completely alienate him and station him in a corner a la Warriors-era Harrison Barnes. But just giving them small doses of that, especially when Doncic looks to isolate and attack defenses, could be just the spice that Carlisle will need offensively to make this team difficult to handle.
5. What happens if the Mavericks finish above .500 but don’t make the playoffs?
Mark Cuban rounds up a crew of owners who will refuse to negotiate a new Collective Bargaining Agreement until NBA Commissioner Adam Silver changes the playoff selection process and makes it the best 16 teams, regardless of conference.