The Dallas Mavericks currently find themselves in 3-0 hole against the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals. Unfortunately, results like this are going to be the norm throughout Luka Doncic’s career.
Luka is wonderful individual player, but you cannot win an NBA championship with the style he currently plays, which is having to put together amazing performances for Dallas to win.
A lot of comparisons have been made between Luka’s current team and Lebron James’ 2007 Cleveland Cavaliers team, that he took to the NBA Finals and got swept by the San Antonio Spurs.
There’s not a comparison there, because Luka’s current Mavs team is way better than Lebron’s 2007 team. Lebron had no help and had to play amazing basketball for the Cavs to win. Luka, has guys like Davis Bertans, Spencer Dinwiddie, Maxi Kleber, and Jalen Brunson so Luka has talent around him but unfortunately those players haven’t played consistently well throughout this series.
Everybody has said, that all Luka needs is another star to play with, but can anybody name another star off the top of their head who would be a perfect compliment to Luka? The name that keeps coming up for me is Bradley Beal but I don’t think he will be leaving the Wizards anytime soon as they have built a core around him.
The other problem Dallas has is coaching, to win a championship, you have to have great pieces around you and a great coach, Dallas is missing one component to that equation because Jason Kidd isn’t a great coach. Kidd’s offensive schemes were stagnant and univolved while coach of the Bucks, there was no consistent ball movement in his scheme. His defensive scheme is even worse, his scheme involves trapping guys at the 3-point line so that other shooters can easily get wide open threes.
This play against the Raptors in 2018 will illustrate what I’m talking about:
Dallas has been ok defending the three-point line this year, but what about next year? Jason Kidd is not an innovator, his offensive and defensive schemes only work the first year before teams figure out what’s he running. Jason Kidd throughout his short coaching career, has struggled to adjust when teams have adjusted to him.
Sorry Mavs fans, enjoy 2011 because it will be the last time your team sniffs a Larry O’Brien trophy until Luka Doncic retires.
