Luka Doncic has come out the gate on fire this season. Outside getting his 3-pointer to fall, Doncic has been almost perfect through the Mavericks’ first 14 games of this season. The Mavericks are 8-6, a record that is largely possible due to the insane statistics Luka has had to put up so far this season.
Doncic has become an MVP frontrunner with his historic production, but in the one game the Mavs decided to rest Luka, everything went wrong. The worst team in the league, the Houston Rockets, beat the Mavericks without Luka in a game where the Mavs looked stagnant and reliant on bad shot selection from Tim Hardaway Jr. and Christian Wood.
NBA commentator and analyst Greg Anthony criticized the Mavericks for not surrounding Luka with more talent and saying that Luka’s high usage rate shouldn’t be criticized because the Mavs have nobody else to dribble and create.
This might be the first person in the media that I’ve seen speak rationally about Luka’s usage. He gets it.
Appreciate you Greg Anthony https://t.co/SNRofHZaZw pic.twitter.com/LK9dpDGZHN
— wiz🧜🏻♀️ (@kt_wza) November 17, 2022
“As great as Luka is and as high as his usage is, it’s just hard to fathom that they’d be able to go through the Western Conference and win four 7-game series. You’ve gotta have another dynamic player and I’ve always thought that with a guy like Luka, less is more. He’s deferring a little more and creating an environment where other guys are being empowered to be offensive-minded. It might work well, but the reality is, they might not be good enough for him to defer more. They may need him to play at the level he’s playing at if they want to contend. When you look at all the top teams, they generally have 2 great players. At least 2 great players. That’s the question that’s still out there with this Mavs team.”
The Mavericks roster building with Doncic has been extremely disappointing considering they employ a player that could be an all-time great. Doncic is averaging 34.4 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 7.8 assists so far this season.
A History Of Bad Decisions For The Dallas Mavericks
The Mavericks have put themselves in this situation of not having adequate roster depth around Luka. The team is in the luxury tax for having taken on contracts like Davis Bertans and paying Tim Hardaway Jr. last offseason. They didn’t extend Jalen Brunson when they had the chance and lost him for nothing in free agency.
Their biggest free agent signing was JaVale McGee, who got a 3-year contract from the Mavs and has already been taken out of the rotation. The Mavs also chose to not sign the likes of Goran Dragic and Dennis Smith Jr., a decision that the Chicago Bulls and Charlotte Hornets have benefitted from.
The Mavs are a roster that on a good day can out-shoot any team in the NBA. Sadly, the team without Luka is not able to create wide-open shots at the rim or outside the arc. The Mavs’ offensive system as a team is basically non-existent, as they have designed an offense to be completely reliant on what Luka does.
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