The Dallas Mavericks, at last, are back.
The team’s training camp, happening this week in Las Vegas, has already thrust the team back into the in-season’s perpetual news cycle with several items meriting attention. Here’s a brief rundown of what you ought to know and how to feel about it.
Luka Dončić has a minor injury
Luka Dončić has a left calf contusion, the team announced on Wednesday, which is expected to keep him out of full practice participation for a week. It’s an injury that happened over the weekend in Dallas, DLLS’ Marc Stein reported, but there’s no concern about his availability for the team’s season opener going forward.
It’s a bruise, one which causes players to miss about four days on average, according to Jeff Stotts, who maintains an injury database for every player in the league. It’s not good, exactly, that Dončić has already received this season’s first knock. But Dončić compiles dozens of minor injuries throughout any given season — as do most players, to be honest — and his absence is nothing to be concerned about.
Jason Kidd’s new emphasis is off-ball movement
Around this time last year, Jason Kidd told reporters that he wanted his team to play at a faster tempo, which could have been one of those trite cliches deployed by many coaches in the weeks leading up to opening day. Instead, Dallas did exactly that: the team finished this past regular season with the seventh-fastest pace, a startlingly improvement from the 30th and 28th that the team finished in Kidd’s first two years in charge.
This season, it’s off-ball movement that’s the emphasis, headlined by Kidd sharing in an exclusive DLLS sitdown that he met with Phil Jackson during the offseason to discuss the triangle offense he made famous with the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers.
“It was incredible to talk triangle (offense), to have Phil walk us through the triangle offense on his basketball court,” Kidd told DLLS’ Marc Stein. “It was a masterclass to sit down and watch video. It was surreal to be in the same room talking basketball with one of the greatest basketball coaches. I think he’s a genius.”
Dallas, like many offenses, has used triangle principals in its offense. It’s a scheme that can be deployed specifically and occasionally within any offense, one centered around specific cuts and movement most often centered around a high post player with the ball. It embraces dribble handoffs — DHOs — that easily flow into pick-and-rolls if the backdoor cuts or open 3s don’t initially arise. It involves more dynamic motion around the ball, especially from a team’s stars when they don’t possess the ball, which can naturally cause more chaos for a defense to account for.
“We’ll see (how much triangle offense we put into the offense),” Kidd said. “I think we have some of the personnel to run some version of the triangle, to put players in position to be successful. One thing I learned about the triangle is that the Lakers teams really didn’t dribble that much. It was a lot of passing and holding the ball for two seconds and getting off of it.”
Dallas has had a top-10 offense each of the past two seasons, but what criticism exists for the team led by Dončić is how his deliberate nature can sometimes lend his teammates to become static while he pounds the ball against a mismatched defender. That won’t go away, but asking him to do more away from the ball and his teammates to have more movement responsibilities is a fascinating topic to track.
Is Dereck Lively II the new Al Jefferson?
Dereck Lively II, the team’s 20-year-old center who has virtually no limit on his ceiling, has already earned praise from Kidd for his work in the post during training camp’s initial days. The subhead, I fear, is an example of Betteridge’s law. No, Lively isn’t turning into a low post menace with a plethora of moves. But there’s absolutely room for the second-year professional to become a more efficient scorer when he has deep post positioning especially against a smaller player.
“There were a lot of post-ups,” Kidd said. “He displayed something that he’s maybe added here.”
Lively showed some ability to score in those situations last season, although it was inconsistent and sometimes clunky. Here’s one compilation of him succeeded in those areas:
Kidd specifically noted that Lively was finishing with both hands in these areas, a welcome sign after being far less comfortable using his left hand last year.
Dante Exum and Maxi Kleber are second-teamers
After Kidd announced Lively would begin training camp as the team’s starter, he went further in the DLLS interview, mentioning that he currently had Dante Exum and Maxi Kleber in the second team. That indicates those players are ahead of Spencer Dinwiddie, Jaden Hardy, and Olivier-Maxence Prosper, at least for now, although there will be opportunities for every player this season and rotations can always change.
“It’s a great problem to have when you talk about having that many guys,” Kidd said. “I think (this team) is probably deeper than the ‘11 championship team.”
