Will Dallas be able to live up to expectations this year?
Expectations are higher than ever for the Dallas Mavericks after their run to the NBA Finals last season. With an MVP-caliber superstar in Luka Doncic, a quality co-star in Kyrie Irving, and the addition of Klay Thompson, it’s no surprise most people are high on the Mavs. But not everyone.
In a segment on ESPN’s “NBA Today,” the panel was asked which team is the most likely to collapse at some point in the season. Kendrick Perkins, infamous for his bad takes, took the Mavericks.
“Is Klay Thompson really gonna turn back the hands of time? Is he gonna be that guy that’s gonna consistently knock down shots? And then Luka,” Perkins continued, “we saw last season when he got to the NBA Finals, some could argue that Luka somewhat ran out of gas. He’s gonna put up the numbers because he’s gonna have the ball in his hands… but I’m looking at the Mavs, and no one is really fearing them right now… I expect Minnesota to come out and be better, and I expect the Lakers and so forth to be better.”
Perkins’ whole argument falls flat. Thompson doesn’t need to turn the clock back; he shot three-pointers at a 38.7% clip last season and didn’t have Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving creating open shots for him. Doncic was fighting injuries in the playoffs more than he was running out of gas. And the LA Lakers did not get better. That was thrown in for clicks. The Oklahoma City Thunder arguably got better, and the Minnesota Timberwolves mainly stayed constant but could see internal improvement.
If the Mavericks were to collapse, it’d be because of injury. The defense shouldn’t fall off too much, even with Thompson in the starting place of Derrick Jones Jr., as they still have P.J. Washington and the center duo of Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford. But Thompson is a few years removed from two major injuries, Doncic was hampered at the end of last year, and Irving hasn’t played more than 60 games since the 2018-19 season. Injuries are mostly luck, so it’s hard to predict a collapse due to that, though.
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