Take a moment and think about every championship contender in modern NBA history. After just 30 seconds, it would be common to recognize the various forms of contenders that would encompass that list. Superteams, star duos with adequate supporting casts, teams with one star and a sound slew of role players, balanced teams with no stars, teams built through the draft, teams built through free agency, teams who built both ways, teams who just couldn’t make it over the hump. The constant theme is that there is no one singular way to build a title contender. There are themes that have higher success rates, but the term success itself is relative. What makes a contender… a contender? For the Dallas Mavericks, this is a question that every player, coach, front office member, media member and fan is asking. How will Dallas become a contender again, and is it a replicable formula for the entirety of Luka Doncic’s era with the franchise?
The Now
As things stand in August 2023, there’s optimism on what this new season will bring to the city of Dallas, but conflicting feelings on whether or not the franchise has altered the makeup of the roster enough to be 2023-2024 contenders. Most would say the cautiously optimistic sweet spot in terms of predictions for the Mavericks would be to make the playoffs after a year away from the tournament, and contend for a 5 or 6 seed. Pessimism looks at a stacked Western Conference and a couple of serious needs left unfilled on the roster and see the Mavs contending for home-court in the play-in tournament at best. Consensus is that they are not a legitimate title contender, now just 10 months away from when we will find out who the next two contenders for the NBA Finals will be.
The additions of multiple defensive-minded rookies, an elite wing defender, and some solid role players to fill out the end spots of your bench are what we have seen thus far in the Summer of 2023 from Nico Harrison & co. The recipe they are preparing for the fanbase to feast on is centered around 2 stars, one under 25 years old and one over 30 years old (more on this later) who happen to be below-average defenders, but in the highest tier of the elites offensively. The way to build around Luka & Kyrie for contention is to surround them with sound defensive players who also possess multiple ways to contribute on offense. Players like Josh Green, Grant Williams, Olivier-Maxence Prosper & Dereck Lively II all currently, or are projected to fit that bill. It still remains to be seen whether or not a team can win a title while both star players are below-average defenders. The most recent example of the Denver Nuggets winning the 2023 NBA Championship doesn’t even fully align with how Dallas is building their team. No one would classify Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray as defensive stalwarts, but the main reason Jokic catapulted into yearly MVP contention and now a champion, is partly because of no longer being a liability on the defensive end. Sometimes, being average is all that it takes.
The two reasons Dallas is not yet considered a contender, are not having a clear-cut number three player for a contending roster, and relying too heavily on two rookies to be a core of the teams’ defensive identity. Dallas can fix the former, either through trade or through internal development via Josh Green, but the latter can only be fixed with time. Dallas has the blueprint to be a contender, but the pieces to create the immaculate puzzle that is a championship-worthy roster are still pending. They are closer today than they were in April, but this upcoming regular season will tell us all we need to know about the potential candidacy for Dallas to vault into the upper echelon of NBA contendership.
The Future
All the reasons that Dallas may not be ready for contention now, are the reasons that Dallas could be certified contenders in the future. The reliance on rookies Lively II and Prosper will be volatile. In year 1, Dallas cannot expect championship-level contributions on a consistent basis from these two, especially in a playoff series. However, they are both set-up for a development plan starting this Summer that could see them as starters and the 3rd & 4th best players on this team, respectively, within the next 2-3 years. The future aspirations for NBA Championships will significantly be impacted by the development of the rooks. Imagine it’s the beginning of the 2025-2026 season. Luka & Kyrie are still your star duo, with Luka fully entered into his prime and Kyrie having just exited his. Lively II and Prosper fill out the 4 & 5 spots in the starting lineup. Either Grant Williams or Josh Green have stayed aboard the ship and have the 5th starter role/7th man role locked down. Jaden Hardy is your scoring 6th man. Dwight Powell is still getting backup center minutes… (JOKING… maybe). Going into the 2025-2026 playoffs, all of Dallas’ young core will be 22-28 years old and with 3 seasons or more each of experience. Throw in that Irving should still be with the team at that point, and you have yourself a contender, and in my opinion, the best team in the association.
As goes life, everything stated above will likely not 100% transpire by the time 2025 arrives. However, Dallas isn’t fully reliant upon the aforementioned scenario playing out as their only pathway to contention. They have the young core that can organically grow into a contender, but they also have veteran pieces and assets to be additives to the process. Dallas currently possesses multiple 2nd round picks and their 2027 1st round draft pick for trading purposes. After exiting the 2024 draft next June, they would possess two 1st round picks to trade. And if they waited to trade 1sts until draft night 2025, they would be able to trade up to three 1st round picks. Dallas isn’t in the greatest position in terms of draft capital in the league, but they have improved their present and future outlooks while actually adding draft capital to their pool in Summer 2023. Don’t expect Dallas to be in the final four in June 2024, but they are on the cusp as long as they stay the current path.
Is Dallas’ Star Duo Going to Work?
Dallas possesses two star players on opposite sides of their primes. Kyrie Irving will enter this season at 31 years old, and Luka Doncic enters at 24. Here are a few other notable star duos that met the same criteria:
Tim Duncan & David Robinson
Tracy McGrady & Grant Hill
Kobe Bryant & Shaquille O’Neal
Amar’e Stoudemire & Steve Nash
Dwyane Wade & Shaquille O’Neal
Carmelo Anthony & Allen Iverson
Kyrie Irving & LeBron James
Bam Adebayo & Jimmy Butler
Devin Booker & Chris Paul
Looking at this list of 9 star duos, there is a variety of combinations. The Spurs with Duncan & Robinson featured 2 dominant big men. You see Kyrie Irving as the young star with LeBron, and now the older star with Luka in Dallas. Shaquille O’Neal is featured with two of the top 5 shooting guards in NBA history, Kobe Bryant & Dwyane Wade. You have two defensive powerhouses in Adebayo and Butler in Miami. Also, you see the prototypical Point Guard-Big Man combo of Steve Nash & Amar’e Stoudemire. The duo that aligns most with Doncic & Irving is the Carmelo Anthony-Allen Iverson combo in Denver. Although Luka Doncic and Carmelo Anthony’s games have very few similarities, they were both elite offensively and subpar defensively as a whole. Whereas Irving & Iverson’s games as score-first undersized 2 guards are very alike. Irving began his tenure with Dallas at age 30, and Iverson began his tenure in Denver at age 31. The pairing of Anthony & Iverson was short-lived in Denver, spanning less than 2 full seasons and ending with two 1st round playoff exits. As mentioned, this was the duo that most closely compared to the other star duos who met the age criteria of the Mavericks’ duo, but there are still stark differences in this comparison. Luka Doncic’s facilitating ability is arguably top-2 in the NBA, a differentiator between him and Anthony. The Iverson-Anthony duo, in part didn’t produce title contention due to neither being a true floor general. Iverson was eventually traded to the Detroit Pistons with Chauncey Billups ending up in Denver, and the Nuggets made a Western Conference Finals run after that transaction, with Billups being the point guard that Denver truly needed to pair with Carmelo. Kyrie Irving, arguably, is in a better win-now position career-wise than Iverson was when he began his tenure in Mile High City, although the two do have much in common on the court. Dallas’ floor with the Luka-Kyrie duo is going to be the output from Denver in 2006-2008. The question is whether or not they will depict the success of a Duncan-Robinson combination, or either of Shaquille O’Neal’s duos. Dallas realistically has a 2, maybe 3 year window for the Luka-Kyrie era to show what it can produce. The ceiling is a contender for the entirety, the floor is multiple early-round playoff exits. How Dallas works around the edges with transactions and play development will determine whether this 2-3 year window turns into Dallas driving straight into another window once Irving’s time with the franchise comes to a close a few years from now.
Building a title contender is hard. One big mistake, or multiple minor mistakes can set a franchise back 2+ years in development. For Mavs fans, this has shown itself throughout the Dirk era and Luka’s era as well. No franchise builds a contender without a little luck as well. Dallas experienced some luck this off-season with somehow keeping their 2023 1st round pick and getting the 10th overall selection in the draft lottery. Then, they were fortunate for Sacramento to offload Richaun Holmes to Dallas with the 24th overall pick as the tax, and Dallas was able to select Olivier-Maxence Propser. For a franchise that has a history of bad draft lottery luck, the 2023 draft experience alone possibly opened a future window of title contention once this current window closes. Now, all Dallas has to do is avoid the setback mistakes, and continue to be patient in the process. Thus far, Dallas seems to have understood the assignment beginning this off-season.
