Dallas finally has a roster that doesn’t require its star to do everything
The debate around Luka Doncic and his usage has existed basically since he entered the league. After a good rookie season where he shared the floor with a lot of veterans, Doncic took full reign of the Mavericks in his sophomore season and hasn’t looked back. His usage and touches exploded, the Mavericks made it back to the playoffs, and the longer the Mavericks went without substantial playoff success, the more questions about how much Doncic has the ball lingered.
What made this conversation so strange is how it expanded from the usual suspects of TV talking heads and online trolls to people that actually matter — it’s one thing for Stephen A. Smith or Charles Barkley shouting that Doncic holds the ball too much, it’s another when the organization’s own general manager hints at that as well.
“Here’s a guy (Doncic) that thinks that he can win every possession of every game,” former Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson said after the Mavericks lost to the Clippers in the first round of the 2021 playoffs. “His numbers are unique. I think part of his maturity is again knowing how to balance all those kill shots with involving teammates at the right time.”
It’s hard to have this conversation about Doncic’s usage, because it is delicate — lean one way and you veer into “he’s a ball hog!” but go too far defending the other direction and you end up unable to see where Doncic and the Mavericks roster can improve. Because while the debate around Doncic’s usage has gone back and forth for years now, there is one near objective truth — the Mavericks cannot win a title with Doncic’s usage skyrocketing.
The problem is diagnosing why Doncic’s usage is the way it is, and that’s where the camps are formed. People see that statement — the Mavericks cannot win a title with Doncic’s usage skyrocketing — and hunker down on either side, shouting “see, see, he is a ball hog!” or doubling down on defending the way he plays with no room to improve. The answer, as it usually is with these debates, is closer to the middle. Yes, Doncic does need to lower his usage for the Mavericks to take the ultimate step, but there has to be context around the why and how.
Here’s the truth: Of the last five NBA champions, the player that had the highest usage on those teams during the regular season was Giannis Antetokounmpo at 32 percent. That number would be the lowest usage of Doncic’s career outside of Doncic’s rookie season. In the 2021 playoffs, that number for Giannis dipped slightly lower.
Again, those that think Doncic is hogging the ball will point to this and prove their thoughts are validated. But it’s not that simple — the best teams should have their highest usage player being lower than what Doncic has been posting since… those are championship teams. Teams with better players shouldn’t rely on their best player to do absolutely everything for them on offense (although they should obviously still do a lot).
Prior to the current front office leadership with Nico Harrison, the previous Mavericks regime was all about maximizing Doncic’s talents around cost-efficient role players, hording assets and cap space for a theoretical big fish free agency signing. Outside of the trade for Kristaps Porzingis, most of the Mavericks transactions during the Donnie Nelson era of Doncic’s career focused on cheap, affordable role players that could theoretically give 60-70 percent of the production of more expensive players but for a fraction of the cost. Dorian Finney-Smith, Reggie Bullock, Delon Wright, Seth Curry, Josh Richardson, and Willie Caulie-Stein were all major role players at one point or another during this era, which wasn’t that long ago. Now look at where most of them are — either out of the league (Bullock, Caulie-Stein), in severely reduced roles (Josh Richardson, Delon Wright), or toiling away on non-contenders (Dorian Finney-Smith, Seth Curry). This is not to besmirch these players, but more to say the Mavericks wanted to pay less for more production, when talent always wins in the NBA.
The previous front office made the gamble that Doncic’s extraordinary gifts would compensate for the limitations of his teammates, and to a degree they were proven right — Dallas went from 38 wins in Doncic’s rookie season to making the playoffs comfortably the next two. The problem was in the playoffs, that strategy breaks down, as there’s a reason hearing the moniker of “82 game players vs. 16 game players” more and more. NBA playoff basketball and NBA regular season basketball are practically two different sports right now, and what can get you by in the regular season doesn’t cut it when playing a seven-game series against high-quality opponents. Talent wins. That’s why the last team to win a title that wasn’t a top-three seed was the Houston Rockets almost 30 years ago. In fact, there have only been two such teams to pull this off in NBA history — the aforementioned Rockets in 1995, and the 1969 Boston Celtics.
So yes, Doncic needs to use the ball less, but those rosters were not built to allow that to happen. It’s no surprise that the most successful season of the Doncic era came last season, when the Mavericks made the NBA Finals after the new front office led by Harrison revamped the vision of what the team should look like, supplying Doncic with the most versatile talent he had ever played with in the NBA. Dallas made strides last season in weaning itself off Luka-ball, increasing pace significantly and lessening Doncic’s load in the playoffs, where Doncic’s 32.4 usage rate fell closer to past championship teams.
Of course the Celtics put a squash to that, as Dallas ran into a roster that was more talented and multi-dimensional than itself. It’s no surprise Dallas looked the worst it had all playoffs in the five-game loss, with Doncic’s usage spiking to the highest of any playoff series during that run (36.7 percent). Boston forced Doncic and co-star Kyrie Irving to play one-on-one basketball, refusing to give up easy lobs and corner threes and daring role players to make plays. Those role players were able to do it in the previous rounds, but Boston’s roster was too good.
That helps explains this past summer’s moves for Dallas, adding Klay Thompson and Naji Marshall, giving the roster more dynamic pieces that can do things without Doncic creating everything for them. As part of that process, it’s clear the Mavericks are lessening the load on Doncic as the talent of the roster grows around him.
Doncic’s usage through 11 games is 33.3 percent — which if holds would be the lowest since his rookie season, and inching closer to the numbers of high-usage players from previous championship rosters. It’s not just the usage, Doncic’s touches and time of possession are significantly down as well.
While Doncic is touching and holding the ball less, he still is getting his shots — he’s currently at 26.3 attempts per game, tying the career high he set last season. Dallas is trying to balance making sure the best scorer on the team is still taking the most shots, while lessening the load so Doncic can conserve energy for the other end of the floor and keep his teammates involved.
There are naturally going to be some growing pains with Doncic moving into a more off-ball role than ever before, he’s only ever known dominating the ball at the NBA level because he had to. Doncic’s shooting has been wonky, and combined with missing the entire preseason, it’s not surprising that Doncic doesn’t seem to have much rhythm.
Doncic moving without the ball, or spotting up around another action before moving toward the ball and attacking off the catch should only improve the diversity of the Mavericks offense when the competition heats up in the playoffs. For now, it just looks like Doncic is a little off as he doesn’t have the comfortability of setting up every play by himself.
That’s not to say there haven’t been positive glimpses, like Doncic’s sparkling efficiency numbers on dribble handoff plays, or this cut against the Nuggets as the Mavericks continue to work on trusting their bigs to handle the ball.
While Dallas’ 5-6 start is disappointing, injuries and this new role for Doncic are certainly playing their part and both should improve — Dereck Lively returned against the Warriors, with PJ Washington hopefully soon to follow. And of course Doncic should continue to get more comfortable with this adjustment in role and expect his shooting numbers to normalize as a result. In a weird way, Mavericks fans should feel better about what’s happening now compared to if Dallas was 7-4 or 8-3 with Doncic dominating the ball and scoring 38 points per game. Dallas is shifting its philosophy to something more sustainable, because it finally has the roster to do it.