Dallas Mavericks: Kristaps Porzingis is proving his value with Doncic out

With Luka Doncic out, Kristaps Porzingis is proving his worth to the Dallas Mavericks and proving that he is indeed a “unicorn”

When LeBron James and Chris Bosh took their talents to South Beach, many expected Miami’s road to a championship to be a cakewalk. As we all know, the opposite was true.

LeBron James and Dwyane Wade were not an ideal fit playing with one another due to their shaky outside jump shots (Wade in particular). Meanwhile, when Kevin Durant joined the 73-9 Golden State Warriors, he blended into the team seamlessly (on the basketball court at least).

These two contrasting situations bring into focus Ben Taylor’s concepts of floor-raisers and scalability in basketball players. Ball-dominant stars who struggle to function as off-ball players often have difficulties playing next to other stars. The whole may add up to less than the sum of its parts.

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This brings us to the case of Kristaps Porzingis. He has already been proclaimed as a “unicorn” due to his extraordinary range from three combined with his ability to block shots and protect the rim, all while standing 7-foot-3. These rare set of skills have been extremely valuable to the Dallas Mavericks’ success.

On most teams throughout the league, Dwight Powell would not be able to start due to his defensive limitations. With Porzingis in the mix, however, Powell is able to guard power forwards on the perimeter while thriving in his role as the five-man on offense – setting screens for Luka Doncic and rolling to the rim.

Porzingis spacing the floor from behind the arc is an essential ingredient to this recipe. He brings the best of both worlds. It has allowed the Mavericks’ Luka-centric offense to torch the NBA at a historic rate.

With Doncic twisting his ankle last Saturday against the Heat, it was reasonable to expect this vaunted Dallas offensive attack to fall back to earth. The idea of heliocentrism is taking the league by storm, and the Mavericks are right in the thick of it. It became evident pretty early in the season that it was Luka’s team, especially with KP bricking mid-rangers left and right.

Porzingis himself was even fine fading into the background to bear witness to the Luka-show. Rick Carlisle began altering his lineups to maximize the ecosystem around the Slovenian wunderkind.

Despite running up against three strong Eastern Conference contenders during Luka’s absence, the Mavericks have remained very competitive with Porzingis stepping up into a lead role. He is firing threes with even more reckless abandon, running off pin-downs and stagger screens, and posting up more frequently. He has even been attacking wings like Jaylen Brown and Khris Middleton off of closeouts.

As a result, Porzingis’ scoring and playmaking have skyrocketed, without much change in efficiency. His turnovers have also remained astronomically low. The starting lineup with Jalen Brunson replacing Doncic sports a robust +12.4 net rating. He pretty much sealed the impressive victory in Milwaukee with two late dagger 3-pointers.

He may not ever turn out to be the franchise player that Dallas thought they were getting last February, but it is very promising that Kristaps Porzingis is playing a large part in keeping the Mavericks afloat (so far) while Doncic is out. It will likely take a while for him to rekindle his mid-post scoring prowess from his Knicks days as he gets his legs underneath him.

Even during these last three games, he has had some ugly moments trying to create looks one-one. Nonetheless, it is healthy for the long term outlook of the team for Porzingis to get his reps playing in this role. We have seen the importance of having multiple counters and options to your offensive system once opponents can lock-in and game-plan (just ask the 2017 Houston Rockets) in the playoffs.

Time will tell whether he can truly fill in as a lead-option in a pinch. Not many star players in this league can toggle between roles as a floor-raiser on a solid team and key cog on a great team. Porzingis so far in his brief stint with Dallas has shown the ability to do both, which is another reason why he is a unicorn.