Cooper Flagg and P.J. Washington look to help lead the Mavericks into a new era.
Get Caught Up
• Last Season: 26-56 (12th in West, missed postseason)
• Key Additions: Santi Aldama, Tarik Biberović, Sergio De Larrea, Morez Johnson Jr., Tobi Lawal, Zaccharie Risacher, Marcus Sasser
• Every Mavericks move this offseason
Season Outlook
The Mavericks have officially shed their questionable past and are ready to surge in a new direction, in every way. Masai Ujiri, who built a championship team in Toronto, was hired to run the basketball operation, and he in turn hired Dusty May, a first-time NBA coach who won a national championship at Michigan.
The goal is obvious — build a contender with Cooper Flagg as the centerpiece. On the heels of his very solid rookie campaign, Flagg seems ready to make an All-Star push, remarkable for a 19-year-old. He’ll finally know what it’s like to have a point guard with the credentials of Kyrie Irving; the question is, will Irving still be around after the trade deadline, regardless of how well he bounces back from missing a season with injury?
The same goes for others (P.J. Washington, Dereck Lively II, etc.) who were contributors to the team that advanced to the Finals a few years ago. Essentially, the Mavs want to know who’s worth keeping for this transition.
Breakout Candidate: Zaccharie Risacher
Lost in the recent rash of standout first overall picks is Risacher, who was mostly underwhelming during his two seasons with the Hawks. It’s rare when a team quickly surrenders a player drafted so high — he fell out of the Hawks’ rotation in last year’s playoffs — and one who’s just 21 at that.
The Mavericks are encouraged by the latter, and also that, in some situations, a player is just in the wrong place and at the wrong time. If a change of scenery is just what the basketball doctor ordered, then Risacher could thrive in his new environs. There’s a flow to his game and his fundamentals are solid. He just needs to drop the burden that comes with being No. 1, along with improved confidence and a team and coach who believe in him. Mostly, he needs to give the Mavs a reason to suspect they stole a solid rotational player.
1 Number To Know
11.4% — The Mavs had the league’s biggest differential between their effective field goal percentage in the first six seconds of the shot clock (64.1%, fifth best) and their effective field goal percentage thereafter (52.7%, 28th).
If the Mavs weren’t in transition, they were struggling to score. According to Synergy tracking, they ranked second in transition efficiency (1.20 points per chance), but 30th in half-court efficiency (0.93 points per chance). The latter is more important and the Mavs ranked 27th offensively overall.
The return of Irving will obviously help. Over the last three years, the Mavs have scored 1.11 points per chance when an Irving isolation has led directly to a shot, turnover or trip to the line, a rate which ranks seventh among 110 players with at least 300 direct isolations over that stretch. His pick-and-roll efficiency (1.04 per chance) isn’t quite as high, but is still significantly higher than that of any of the ball-handlers the Mavs had last season.
— John Schuhmann
5 Must-See Matchups
• Oct. 24: Mavericks vs. Spurs — There will be three consecutive No. 1 overall picks on the floor in this one, with Risacher and Flagg joining Victor Wembanyama.
• Nov. 14: Mavericks vs. Cavaliers — Irving no doubt will get a hero’s welcome in Cleveland, where his Game 7 shot in 2016 helped produce the city’s only basketball championship.
• Nov. 15: Mavericks vs. Celtics — Flagg returns close to his home state of Maine, where he grew up a Celtics fan.
• Dec. 17: Mavericks vs. 76ers — LeBron James has spoken highly of Flagg, who might someday become one of the league’s marquee players once LeBron retires.
• Feb. 13: Mavericks vs. Hornets — Not only will Flagg play against his college teammate Kon Knueppel, but Washington is a former Hornet.
> Complete regular season schedule
Preseason Storylines
The Mavs have a surplus of big men, and that’s actually a nice problem. Washington, Lively and Daniel Gafford are joined by Santi Aldama, who arrived this summer from the Grizzlies, and Johnson, a first-round pick.
Aldama is a solid rotational player who showed improvement over the last three seasons; he averaged double figures in scoring in each. As for Johnson, he helped Michigan win a title and the Mavericks selected him on the recommendation of May, his college coach.
At some point, a pecking order must be established, and the competition for minutes will only help the Mavericks.
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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA since 1985. You can e-mail him at spowell@nba.com, find his archive here and follow him on X.
