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Luka's Mavs Better This Season: 3 Reasons Why

Although this offseason wasn't what many of us expected, the fact remains that the Mavs made improvements, and there are three main reasons why the team will take another step forward.

The Dallas Mavericks' offseason started out with a bang, as the team announced that it had parted ways with long-time general manager Donnie Nelson, followed by long-time head coach Rick Carlisle resigning and eventually signing a deal to become the head coach of the Indiana Pacers. 

After the dust settled, Dallas had Nico Harrison and Jason Kidd as its new general manager and head coach, respectively, and the connections Harrison had created while working for Nike raised hopes that the Mavs could find a way to make a big splash this summer.

Alas, that 'big splash' never came, as the Mavs, at least for the time being, settled for a modest offseason by re-signing Tim Hardaway Jr. and Boban Marjanovic, while also signing a couple of versatile role players in Reggie Bullock and Sterling Brown. Although Harrison does have a lot of connections when it comes to NBA players and their agents, the argument could be made that he hasn't had enough time to establish himself as a league executive for those connections to matter yet.

If that had been the narrative owner Mark Cuban had led with heading into the offseason, perhaps the reactions to what Dallas did, or didn't do, rather, would've been better all around. But the expectations were set high, and when those expectations weren't met, the fan base has a right to be critical. 

It also didn't help that the Mavs' stated its top priority for the offseason as being to add a secondary scorer who could also be a secondary ball handler to take some pressure off of superstar Luka Doncic, who just signed a five-year supermax extension to remain in Dallas. With just a little more than one month until training camp begins, that top priority still hasn't been addressed.

READ MORE: Luka Signs $207M Deal: 'I'm Humbled to Remain In Dallas

Although this offseason wasn't what many of us expected, the fact remains that the Mavs made improvements, and there are three main reasons why the team will take another step forward in the 2021-2022 campaign.

The Continued Rise Of Luka Doncic

Doncic has been so incredibly special through his first three NBA seasons, that it's hard to conceptualize him being even better going forward. The fact remains that Doncic is still just 22 years old, though, and he still has a lot of ways he can improve his game going forward, including his three-point shooting, free-throw shooting and controlling his emotions better with officials. 

It should be noted that Doncic made impressive strides in his three-point shooting last season, shooting 35% from deep on 8.3 attempts per game. He shot 32.7% and 31.6% from deep in his first two seasons, respectively.

Another area of Doncic's game that should be better this time around is his conditioning, especially as it pertains to start of the season. The beginning of last season was rushed due to the Covid-19 pandemic throwing the NBA's schedule off track, and Doncic appeared to working himself into shape during the first couple of weeks as his three-point shooting struggled. 

Doncic having played deep into the Olympics with Slovenia should also pay dividends for him in this department as well. This could very well be the year where Doncic takes the next step in his career by winning his first league MVP award.

Addition By Subtraction... And Then Addition Again

The Mavs trading Josh Richardson to the Boston Celtics for Moses Brown was an 'addition by subtraction' move, as Richardson just never fit in the way they had hoped he would. In hindsight, trading Seth Curry for Richardson and a second-round pick that turned into Tyler Bey was a disaster. There were times where it was obvious that Richardson shouldn't have been starting, and honestly, maybe not even playing at all, yet Rick Carlisle kept trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by starting him in 56 of the 59 games he played last season.

Essentially replacing Richardson with Reggie Bullock and Sterling Brown was a subtle move that won't set off any fireworks in Dallas, but it's something that could end up making a big difference for the Mavs this season. Bullock shot 41% from three last season on 6.1 attempts per game, and Brown shot 42% on 4.2 attempts per game. For context, the Mavs best two three-point shooters last season, percentage-wise, were Maxi Kleber, who shot 41% on 4.2 attempts per game, and Jalen Brunson, who shot 40.5% on 2.9 attempts per game.

Getting rid of a non-fitting piece in Richardson and replacing him with two versatile players like Bullock and Brown will have more of an impact than most people realize at the moment.

Factor in that we're likely to see the Mavs run more in transition under Jason Kidd, and I believe that we'll see more of the same offensive firepower we saw from the Mavs in the 2019-2020 season.

More Internal Roster Growth

We already talked about Doncic continuing his progression as a young player, but other guys like Jalen Brunson and Kristaps Porzingis.

Brunson is coming off of his best season in his young career, where he averaged 12.6 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 25 minutes per game. He shot an outstanding 52.3% from the field and as mentioned earlier, 40.5% from deep. All of those categories were career highs for Brunson. The soon-to-be 25-year-old will look to build on that success, especially considering that this could be a contract year for him if he and the Mavs can't agree on an extension this summer.

If you didn't actually watch Porzingis last season and just went strictly off of his regular season stat sheet, you'd think that maybe the Mavs already have that 'second scorer' Cuban stated the Mavs needed to find this summer. Porzingis average 20.1 points and 8.9 rebounds in 30.9 minutes per game. He shot 47.6% from the field, which was a career-high, 37.6% from deep and 85.5% from the free throw line.

On paper, those numbers look good, and they are if we're just strictly talking regular season offense, but on the defensive end, Porzingis struggled mightily at times. Coming off of a meniscus injury in the previous postseason, the lateral quickness just wasn't there for Porzingis. Although he was ultimately able to start and finish this year's postseason healthy after just playing in just 43 of the team's 72 regular season games, many wondered if Porzingis' defensive struggles were a result of him coming back from his knee injury too soon.

The recent playoff series against the Los Angeles Clippers wasn't the best look for Porzingis, as he averaged just 13 points and five rebounds per game in the seven-game series, despite playing three more minutes per game than he did in the regular season. Not all of that is on Porzingis, however, as Carlisle's strategy to use him mainly as a decoy had a lot to do with his lowered production. Also, when the Clippers went small, it just simply became a bad matchup for Porzingis, who couldn't match the foot speed of L.A.'s versatile wings.

Nobody wants to hear excuses, and we aren't really trying to make any for some of the poor showings we've seen from Porzingis over the last year, but it's a fact that this was essentially the first offseason he's had in his career where he's not having to rehab an injury. For the first time, Porzingis will have had a fully healthy offseason while being able to work on his game and won't have to start this season in 'catch up' mode. 

READ MORE: Mavs Coach Kidd Gives Update On Porzingis

Will we get to see more of the defensive potential Porzingis showed flashes of in New York and his first year in Dallas? Will we get to see Porzingis' offense from the 'Orlando Bubble' that got him recognized on the 'All-Bubble' First Team? That's yet to be seen, but at the very least, I think it's safe to assume that Porzingis will be better this season regardless, if he continues to stay healthy.

One of the biggest luxuries of having a transcendent player of Doncic's stature is that minor moves on paper can end up having a bigger impact than expected when you factor in that the team should have better spacing on offense and hopefully better chemistry overall as well due to the better fits of the pieces that were added.

READ MORE: Mavs One Trade Gets Both Dragic And Markkanen?

This offseason isn't over yet, and the Mavs could potentially make some other moves like adding Lauri Markkanen via sign-and-trade or Goran Dragic via trade or buyout. But even if nothing else happens, Dallas can still take another step forward in the West. It may not be as big of a step as we anticipated, given the lofty offseason expectations, but progress is progress, and there's no arguing that the Mavs did make improvements this summer, and Doncic will amplify those improvements.