Season Outlook
The one word that comes to mind when thinking about the Dallas Mavericks over the course of the 2020-21 NBA season is: Exciting. This team is going to be very exciting to watch, mainly because of how good Luka Doncic is and how good he can still be. There is a reason he is one of the front-runners to win the MVP this upcoming season and he could be one of the main reasons why Dallas hoists a banner over the next few years.
There is no doubt in my mind that Luka Doncic will win an NBA Championship with the Dallas Mavericks and if he keeps playing at the high-level he is playing at and Kristaps Porzingis can stay on the court, then this team has a chance to be special. They have the defensive players to game plan against teams, but the biggest question will be their secondary-scoring.
Last season, Doncic, Porzingis, Hardaway Jr. and Seth Curry were the only players who averaged double-digit scoring over the course of the season and with Curry gone, other players will have to step up because those first three players can not win games by themselves. Trey Burke, Jalen Brunson, Josh Richardson, Maxi Kleber, Wesley Iwundu, James Johnson and Willie Cauley-Stein will all have to elevate their games if the Mavs are to make a run at being legit title contenders.
Realistically, the Mavs could easily finish as a top-four team in the Western Conference and finish with 45-50 wins on the season. The EuroLeague is a lot different than the NBA, but Luka Doncic has not hit any roadblocks yet. His third season in the league will be his most important by far as the Dallas Mavericks have a shot to be a lot like the Miami Heat last season, catching fire late in the season and making a run all the way to the NBA Finals.
The three keys for this team entering the 2020-21 season are keeping Porzingis fresh and healthy, getting Doncic to shoot over 35% from three-point range, and averaging over 40 points from their bench over the course of the season. This Mavericks team is going to shock a lot of NBA fans this year and if Dallas can achieve all three of these goals, then there is no reason why they cannot contend for the 2020-21 NBA title.
