They say you should never make any big decision or deep analysis when you are emotional.
So now that we are roughly 10 days removed from the end of the Mavericks’ disappointing season, it’s OK to take stock of what happened and why.
But mostly, it’s better to look ahead, not back.
The 38-44 season was full of problems, major changes, injuries (mostly nagging, not major) and heartbreak against teams they know they should have beaten. When they were done, they were a sub-.500 team. You are what your record says you are.
OK, enough of that. Rather than rehash who’s to blame, it’s more productive to look at who the Mavericks got the most out of this season and how that might bode well for the 2023-24 season.
So, who were their most productive players relative to what was expected of them?
Anybody can say Luka Dončić is the best Maverick and they’re going to be right.
But in this exercise, we’re going to look at the Mavericks that brought the most to the table relative to reasonable expectations aand gave us reason to think better days are ahead.
We’ll count down our top 10.
10. Maxi Kleber: Yes, he missed more than half the season after hamstring surgery. But before he went out on Dec. 12, the Mavericks were 13-9 in games that Kleber played. He shot 37 percent from three-point land before the injury and his shot never returned to form when he got back after the All-Star break. But his contributions are easy to identify with the eye test. He has been very solid at both ends of the court and he’s under contract for three more seasons at a sensible number ($11 million per). His health is the X factor. He’s due for a season without major disruption in 2023-24.
9. Spencer Dinwiddie/Dorian Finney-Smith: You can’t have this list without paying homage to the two guys who made it possible to acquire Kyrie Irving. We can debate the deal forever, but at the time it happened, it was roundly applauded by virtually everybody. Dinwiddie had a good year with the Mavericks, half a season in 2021-22 and half a season in 2022-23. Finney-Smith grew up in NBA terms with the Mavericks and he earned everything he got. They are gone now. But don’t be surprised if one of them makes their way back to Dallas somehow before it’s all over.
8: Dwight Powell: Like Christian Wood, Powell is a free-agent-to-be and he’s in an interesting situation. He’s the longest-tenured Maverick, having been here for his entire nine-season career, save for five games he played with Boston as a rookie before being part of the Rajon Rondo trade. He does a lot of dirty work – so much that he’s a favorite of coaches, players and fans. He’s been a pillar in the community, too. It’s going to be hard to keep him this summer. Clearly, the Mavericks have a pecking order on their free agents. But Powell is a solid backup center and he’ll have some interest on the market this summer.
7: Reggie Bullock: He’s been with the Mavericks for two seasons and was billed as a 3-and-D player. Frankly, neither he nor anybody else had much success in the D-department last season. He has shot the three-ball pretty well, 37 percent in two seasons. But that’s actually down from his career 38.4 percent mark. He’ll be going into the final season on his three-year deal that he signed for the mid-level exception before 2021-22. It could set up Bullock for an upswing in 2023-24 since he’ll be playing for his next contract.
6: Christian Wood: If you had been told before the season that the 6-10 Wood would average more than 17 points and seven rebounds, you’d have thought that was a decent season. And that’s exactly what it was. Decent. Not great. Not bad. Just somewhere in the middle ground. That’s part of the reason why the Mavericks weren’t in the playoffs. Too many players simply had middle-of-the-road seasons. That’s how a team gets passed up in the standings. But Wood has been the most consistent big man on the team and that’s attributable to his perseverance through inconsistent playing time. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of market there is for Wood this summer.
5: Tim Hardaway Jr.: All he did was prove again that he’s one of the most consistent three-point shooters in the NBA, hitting 38.5 percent from beyond the arc as he averaged 14.4 points in 30.3 minutes per game. Considering he was coming off of left foot surgery, it was a very solid bounce-back season. He’s under contract for two more seasons and he’s proven to be a valuable asset whether he’s starting or coming off the bench. In this era, you must have shooters, which is why Hardaway is one of the best bargains in the league. And his upcoming season should be even better from a physical standpoint as his foot should continue to get better.
4: Josh Green: The 6-5 guard is to the point now that he has to be considered a key piece of the rotation and possibly a starter in the coming seasons, although he did tail off a bit after the Irving trade. He said when it was over that he started to figure out how to play with two superstars on the floor with him. He has the skill set to fit in well with that lineup moving forward. People still are railing on the Mavericks for drafting him in 2020 with Desmond Bane, Saddiq Bey and Tyrese Maxey still on the board. But Green made the sort of strides this season that suggest he is going to be a keeper. He nearly doubled his scoring average to over nine points per game and he shot 40.2 percent from three-point range. It’s hard to believe he was a 16 percent three-point flinger as a rookie.
3: Kyrie Irving: His game is every bit of what it was advertised to be. He is a terrific finisher and a good three-point shooter. The elephant in the room, of course, is the Mavericks 9-18 record after Irving joined the team. It’s not all his fault. But the bottom line is a factor in his ranking. The Mavericks and Irving both have a major decision on his future this summer. He wasn’t acquired as a two-month rental, but as he enters free agency, that’s what it could end up being. What the Mavericks have going for them is a fellow superstar in Luka and the knowledge that a summer of team-building both on and off the court should help promote much better overall productivity next season.
2: Luka Dončić: If the Mavericks had been one of the top four seeds in the Western Conference, Luka’s MVP argument would have been strong and he wouldn’t be No. 2 on any list. Instead, he just put up otherworldly numbers for a mediocre team. He finished the season No. 2 in the league in scoring at 32.4 points per game and also averaged 8.6 rebounds and 8 assists per game. He was awesome, which is what we expect. If he can work on those technical fouls and get the free-throw shooting over 75 percent, he’ll pretty much have the entire package. But, as he was quick to say about the season when it was done: “It was bad.” He’ll come back firing next season and you can bet the leader of the Mavericks will have a nasty attitude after what happened this time around.
1.Jaden Hardy: Talk about a bright future. Nobody has more upside than Hardy. Interestingly, if he had experienced better success in the G League last season, there’s no way he’d have slipped to the second round of the 2022 draft, where the Mavericks got him. He had a really good rookie season – better than anybody envisioned. And the Mavericks did it the right way. Hardy started slow, put time in at the G-League level, worked his way into the rotation late in the season and enjoyed a hot-shooting run that added spike to his energy off the bench. In the last 16 games, he averaged 13.4 points and shot 45.8 percent from three-point land. The 6-4 guard was inconsistent, which is standard for most rookies. But nobody expected him to be solidly in the rotation, which is where he ended up. It sets him up to embark on a sophomore season that has unbridled potential.
Twitter: @ESefko
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