As of right now, Mavericks’ guard depth (apart from Luka) is looking quite bare with Jalen Brunson’s departure for the New York Knicks. If Luka Doncic and his talent can’t keep the Mavericks in the NBA championship race next season, then I fear the Mavs will be wasting their franchise superstar’s potential.
The Mavs, led by Luka Doncic’ greatness, reached the Western Conference Finals for the first time since their 2010-11 NBA championship win this past season. Despite falling to the Golden State Warriors in five games, they showed that their roster had the ability to compete at the highest levels of the NBA (mostly).
Luka managed to put up 31.7 PPG, 9.8 RPG, 6.4 APG, and (impressively) 1.8 SPG while being injured. Even better, the Mavs proved they can win a playoff series without Luka. Led by Jalen Brunson and Spencer Dinwiddie, the Mavericks were able to go up 2-1 over Utah in their First Round series before Luka came back. Then, with Luka on limited minutes, the Mavericks defeated Utah in two of the final three games to win the series.
That surprising victory motivated the Mavs knock out the reigning West Champions in Phoenix in the Second Round before going out to the Warriors in five games the round after. Rightfully, there was great optimism for the offseason and next year.
That is all gone now.
Now, Dallas’ backcourt depth was limited to begin with as they relied heavily on Luka’s brilliance through the regular season and postseason. But with Jalen Brunson walking in free agency straight to New York, the depth is now nonexistent.
It is true they upgraded the frontcourt by trading for former Houston center/power forward Christian Wood, which was a smart pickup. And the added a 34-year-old center Javale McGee to start over Dwight Powell, who played awful against the Jazz, Suns, and Warriors.
Sure, Wood and McGee will help their rebounding and defense, but they didn’t solve their biggest need: additional guard scoring.
Drafting Jaden Harvey 37th overall was a wise pickup, but not enough to fill Brunson’s void. His game is too raw to have him instantly starting next to Luka come opening night. Thus, the Mavs currently have Spencer Dinwiddie as their starting shooting guard, which is a problem. Dinwiddie is a great 6th man/bench player, but he is too injury prone and inconsistent to be starting next to Luka regularly. And he has only recently come back from an ACL tear.
They needed to sign/trade for another guard and didn’t. Now, there is even more pressure on Luka to be the sole scoring behemoth that can take this franchise back to the NBA Finals again. (West Standings Prediction: 2nd-4th; Second Round Playoff Exit)
If that task for Luka was difficult before, he will now find it almost impossible.
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