Why Luka Doncic's 50-point games are a bad sign for the Mavericks
DALLAS — 53 points in 36 minutes. That is what it took Luka Doncic, the Dallas Mavericks' high-profile star, to help the Mavericks secure a 111-105 win over the lowly Detroit Pistons Monday night at American Airlines Center. Fans and the collective Mavericks Twitter praise the stat line and effort. They laughed at Doncic talking […]
DALLAS — 53 points in 36 minutes.
That is what it took Luka Doncic, the Dallas Mavericks' high-profile star, to help the Mavericks secure a 111-105 win over the lowly Detroit Pistons Monday night at American Airlines Center.
Fans and the collective Mavericks Twitter praise the stat line and effort. They laughed at Doncic talking trash with a Pistons assistant coach. And they celebrated a near playoff-like effort that earned Dallas a much-needed win in a month that saw the Mavericks lose nine games.
The ship was finally righted. Doncic was back from his mild ankle sprain. Everything was pointing upward — at least in theory. And on the surface, all of that can be true.
Yet it's not.
And it doesn't change the fact many don't want to admit about the Mavericks: Doncic needing to score 50-plus points to beat a team that is actively tanking isn't a sign of better days — it's just sad. And with the trade deadline looming, if Dallas doesn't make a move, it will be damning.
Doncic scoring 53 points to beat a team like Memphis or Milwaukee or Denver is something to celebrate. His doing so to beat Detroit, who has its eyes set on Victor Wembanyama, when the goal of the season was to return to the Western Conference Finals, is something that should cause concern.
After the game, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd approved of the defensive effort given by Dallas — a rarity this season. However, that same defensive effort allowed Detroit's Bojan Bogdanovic to score 29 points on sizzling efficiency (66 percent from the field and 57 percent from 3-point range).
It can also be argued that if Jaden Ivey doesn't foul out, the outcome of the game is radically different. After Ivey was disqualified, Detorit's offense lost a shade of its already limited dimension. The Pistons became one-dimensional, Bogdanovic was forced to initiate everything, and it became easier for Dallas to defend.
Dallas' defense didn't look more engaged for four quarters, as Kidd posited — it just looked like the Mavericks were playing a team that had fewer offensive weapons.
"Defensively, we started to get stops… I thought we started to execute," Kidd said.
Additionally present was another example of Dallas' roster lacking offensive creators. Spencer Dinwiddie shot 5-for-16, Tim Hardaway Jr. shot 3-for-10, and Dorian Finney-Smith went 2-for-5. Dallas' second-leading scorer, Dinwiddie, tallied 12 points.
If the goal is gritty regular season wins, Dallas has the perfect recipe: Let Doncic do everything and everyone else stand around and watch. But coming into the season, Dallas' goal was to build on what it started last season. Yet, the roster isn't good enough to build much of anything.
That's why Dallas is willing to trade anyone not named Luka Doncic. The front office knows the roster isn't close to good enough to compete for a championship, and even still, the organization remains a handful of moves away from looking like a contending team.
Needing Doncic to score 50 points against the Pistons was merely the latest piece of evidence that something has to change, and fast.
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Feature image via Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
