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No. 8: Dallas Mavericks
Last Season: 50-32
7th place in West; Lost to Houston 4-1 in Round 1
When DeAndre Jordan committed to sign with the Dallas Mavericks as an unrestricted free agent on July 3, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban celebrated with lead recruiter/small forward Chandler Parsons -- and with good reason. Finally, Dallas had been able to lure the star free agent Cuban had been unsuccessfully chasing since winning the 2011 NBA championship.
So it's understandable why the Mavericks were devastated when Jordan changed course the following week, and after a surreal day of rumors, re-signed with the Los Angeles Clippers when the NBA's summer moratorium ended on July 10. With the top free agents already having committed, Dallas was left to pick up the pieces without a real Plan B. The Mavericks have put together a team that could contend for a playoff spot if everything goes right, but more likely will be back in the lottery -- and possibly too good to retain the top-7 protected pick Dallas sent to the Boston Celtics for Rajon Rondo last December.
The makeshift team the Mavericks built last season after spending their cap space on Parsons actually started the season on a record-setting offensive pace. Through Dec. 18, Dallas was scoring 113.6 points per 100 possessions -- an offensive rating 9.8 percent better than league average (103.5). That mark would have surpassed the 2003-04 Mavericks for the best relative offense since the ABA-NBA merger:
Still, the organization figured the team needed to improve defensively (Dallas ranked 20th in defensive rating) to compete in the playoffs. So the Mavericks pulled the trigger on a trade sending starting point guard Jameer Nelson, reserves Jae Crowder and Brandan Wright and the pick to the Celtics in exchange for Rondo.
Some regression was inevitable given how dramatically the Dallas offense had beaten expectations early in the year. But nobody in the organization was prepared for the Mavericks to drop all the way to 13th in offensive rating the rest of the season, barely better than league average. While Dallas did improve slightly defensively, finishing 18th in defensive rating, the Mavericks' winning percentage dipped from .704 to .564.
Things got worse in the playoffs when Rondo again clashed with head coach Rick Carlisle and was benched in the second half of Dallas' Game 2 loss to the Houston Rockets. The Mavericks were already without Parsons, who had tried to play through torn cartilage in his right knee, and Rondo was sent home after Game 2, ostensibly due to a back injury. Down two starters, Dallas lost the series 4-1.
After the disappointing end to the season, the Mavericks made no effort to retain starting guards Rondo and Monta Ellis, who wore out his welcome after two years in Dallas. The push to sign a max free agent also meant letting go of starting center Tyson Chandler, who signed with the Phoenix Suns before the Mavericks had an opportunity to consider bringing him back.
While LaMarcus Aldridge is a Dallas native, he never made much sense for the Mavericks because he would have had to play center next to Dirk Nowitzki. So Dallas focused its efforts on Jordan, which appeared to pay off ... until it didn't. With the rest of the top centers on the market agreeing elsewhere, the Mavericks acquired Zaza Pachulia from the Milwaukee Bucks to start at the position.
Dallas had already signed shooting guard Wesley Matthews of the Portland Trail Blazers, coming off a ruptured Achilles, and Jordan's defection increased his deal to four years at the maximum $70 million. J.J. Barea also got a bigger four-year, $16 million contract to stay. He'll back up Deron Williams, whom the Mavericks were able to sign to a bargain two-year, $11 million deal after he agreed to a buyout with the Brooklyn Nets.
DeAndre Jordan is not walking through that door. The big man's decision to renege on his commitment to the Mavs and return to the Clippers made Dallas' summer a disaster. Owner Mark Cuban even admitted he briefly pondered whether tanking would be Dallas' best bet.
"Tank is all relative, right? Because in the Western Conference, you can really play hard and do your best and still be in the lottery. So the whole concept was, if we didn't get Wes [Matthews], if we didn't get a key free agent and D-Will [Deron Williams] in this particular case among others, what would have been the best strategy for us? If you would have asked me last year, I would have said you do whatever you can to make the playoffs no matter what, and that's the path we're on now."
Even with an upgraded backcourt but lacking a legitimate starting center, the Mavs will have a hard time cracking the top eight in the West. And that means the top-seven protected pick they owe Boston to complete the Rajon Rondo deal could very well land late in the lottery. -- Tim MacMahon
Projected Real Plus-Minus for starters
Deron Williams, PG: +2.8
Wesley Matthews, SG: +0.4
Chandler Parsons, SF: +0.9
Dirk Nowitzki, PF: +2.9
Zaza Pachulia, C: +2.6
Scouting reports on every player on the Mavericks
Using shot data from 2014-15 and projected starters, Grantland's Kirk Goldsberry ranks each team's offensive efficiency based on square footage.
Pachulia shot 49 perent from inside eight feet last season. Almost-Maverick DeAndre Jordan hit on 71 percent from that distance.
Nowitzki, 37, is still among the best stretch 4s in the game, leading the NBA in 3-point percentage (39%) among players 6-10 and taller over the past two seasons.
All About The Space: 3rd (490 sq. ft. of above-average offense)
To identify players who stretch offenses the most, ESPN Stats & Information created the Kyle Korver Effect -- a metric on a 1-100 scale, factoring in 3PT%, 3-point attempt rate (percentage of total shots that come from 3-point range) and influence on teammate FG%.
Korver Effect: Parsons (85.3), Nowitzki and Matthews lead the outside attack, which projects to shoot 36.7 percent, sixth in the NBA.
Here's the good news. Dallas' offseason looks surprisingly strong from the perspective of ESPN's real plus-minus. Williams (plus-1.9, 16th among point guards), Matthews (plus-3.7, sixth among shooting guards) and Pachulia (plus-4.8, second among centers) all rated well by the metric last season.
The first question is whether the veterans can keep it up. Pachulia's performance was out of line with the rest of his career, Matthews and Parsons are both coming off serious surgeries, and Nowitzki (37) and Williams (31) are both past their primes. The starters will need to play well because there are major questions about the Dallas bench. Barea is the only returning reserve who played more than 1,000 minutes last season, and the Mavericks have limited depth at the frontcourt positions.
If Dallas stays healthy, if Matthews and Parsons are near 100 percent, and if Williams and Nowitzki hold off Father Time, this could again be a bottom-tier playoff team in the Western Conference. But those are a lot of ifs, and given the competition for the last couple spots in the West, more likely the Mavericks will find themselves on the outside of the postseason race. The worst-case scenario for the 2015-16 Mavericks is missing the playoffs and handing Boston a lottery pick, leaving Dallas no closer to contending in the West.
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