The official start of the NBA season is nearly a month away—October 22, with the Mavericks tipping off two days later—but the unofficial beginning is just around the corner. Mavs media day is set for Monday, and the team will head to Las Vegas to open training camp shortly thereafter.
Expect plenty of conversation about the granular once that happens: Luka Dončić’s MVP chances, Klay Thompson’s integration into the offensive flow, Dallas’ defense, Dereck Lively II’s progression, and so on. Rest assured we’ll get to those in StrongSide when the time is right. At this point in the calendar, though, the topic dominating conversation among experts and oddsmakers is win totals. Just how high can the 2024-25 Dallas Mavericks climb in the regular season standings?
The question becomes even more intriguing when considering two contrasting halves of last season. A team that struggled with talent and health early on revamped its roster at the trade deadline and surged to the NBA Finals. Optimism is certainly warranted based on what we’ve seen from the reloaded, bigger Mavericks, but the real question is whether the best team in the West in last year’s playoffs can maintain that same level of dominance through the regular season. Failing that, can this team secure a top-three seed in the crowded Western Conference, something they have yet to achieve in the Luka Dončić era?
Before diving into projections, let’s establish some groundwork and set the boundaries for this analysis. For starters, we have a five-year track record of teams built around Dončić (excluding his rookie season, when the Mavericks weren’t actively trying to win after the midseason trade for Kristaps Porzingis). Below is a table that shows the Mavericks’ record over each of the past five seasons, including their win totals, win percentage, and adjusted win totals for the two shortened seasons due to the pandemic.
What’s most obvious from this overview is that whenever the Mavericks put even a somewhat competent team around Dončić, they were on pace to win 57 to 60 percent of their regular season games. That’s equivalent to 47 to 49 wins. In two of the last three years under Jason Kidd, their win rate was even higher, in the 61-63 percent range, which translates to 50 to 52 wins. Another 50-win season should be this team’s floor. It’s also the number projected by most Vegas oddsmakers.
But if we’re asking ourselves whether a dominant season is on the horizon, we need to focus on the ceiling, not the floor. If we’re aiming high, for Dalas to win the West, projections suggest that the target should be 57 wins, or a 70-percent win pace.
And if everything falls into place, it’s possible for the Mavericks to reach that mark this season. The Mavericks won 57 games or more six times during Dirk Nowitzki’s peak years, and at age 25, Dončić is just now approaching that stretch. Just as importantly, this is the first time his supporting cast appears to be on par with the talent-filled Mavs teams of the early 2000s. Unlike the two most successful teams of the Dončić era—the 2021-22 team that reached the Western Conference Finals and last year’s Finals team—this roster is set before training camp begins. Nico Harrison reshuffled some pieces by replacing Derrick Jones Jr., Tim Hardaway Jr., and Josh Green with Klay Thompson, Naji Marshall, and Quentin Grimes over the summer. But the core of Dončić, Lively, Kyrie Irving, P.J. Washington, and Daniel Gafford remains intact, bringing with it the invaluable experience of coming within three games of the franchise’s second NBA title.
The Mavericks are also one of the most stacked teams in the NBA, with at least 15 bona fide NBA players, at least 13 of whom can legitimately expect to compete for a rotation spot and meaningful minutes. This depth will make Jason Kidd’s task of keeping everyone engaged and happy more challenging, but it also ensures that the Mavericks can not only stay afloat during inevitable injuries but continue winning at a high rate even when they’re not at full strength.
Last season, the Mavericks posted a 46-24 record (66 percent win rate) in games Dončić played and 35-16 (71 percent) when both Dončić and Irving were on the court. The team struggled without those stars, though, going 4-8 when Dončić missed games, 11-13 without Irving, and 15-12 when Lively was sidelined. Most of these absences occurred in the first part of the season, when the Mavericks lacked size and contingency plans to compensate for the loss of one of their top three players (there’s no doubt Lively is in that group). The trade-deadline additions of Gafford and Washington helped address the former, while this offseason’s acquisitions of Thompson and Spencer Dinwiddie should provide enough scoring and shot creation to help with the latter when Dončić or Irving misses games. Dinwiddie, Dante Exum, and Jaden Hardy will make the battle for the backup ball-handler role one of the more intriguing storylines to watch early in the season.
Another such storyline: how long it takes Lively to fully assume the starting center role. Once he does, Gafford will become one of the league’s best backup centers, ensuring stability and easing the burden on Lively. With Washington solidifying the power forward position, Maxi Kleber can shift to a less demanding, low-minute backup role. In addition to the frontcourt depth, Marshall, Grimes, Exum, and Olivier-Maxence Prosper will provide the flexibility and length needed to shore up the Mavericks’ wing defense.
Even if all of the above has you excited about the Mavericks maybe reaching their highest win total in years, you’re probably sensing a “but” coming. In fact, I have two. The first is the level of parity in the NBA, which is as high as it’s been in a long time, especially in the Western Conference. Things will be highly competitive out West again. Eleven of the 15 teams are projected to finish above .500, which means winning at least 43 games. There’s also reason to suspect two teams projected below that threshold, the Los Angeles Clippers and San Antonio Spurs, could surprise (at least in the early part of the season), with the former playing in a new arena while the latter enters Year Two of the Victor Wembanyama era.
This is what the projected win totals look like as of now:
The three teams projected ahead of Dallas all won more than 56 games last season. While the Thunder, boosted by the additions of Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein, seem to be everyone’s favorite to win the conference again, both the Nuggets (who lost a proven starter in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope) and the Timberwolves (point guard Mike Conley turns 37 in October and Kyle Anderson’s departure could have a bigger impact than expected) carry question marks. To secure a top-three seed, the Mavericks will need to surpass one of these teams while holding off a horde of challengers charging from behind—most notably Memphis, which is poised for a rebound season after Ja Morant played just nine games due to suspension and injury.
As tough as the West is, the Mavericks have shown they can win at a high rate after their trade deadline makeover. They played at a nearly 70 percent win pace, going 21-9 in the regular season post-deadline, then 12-5 in the playoffs against three of the top four teams in the conference. (The less said about the Celtics right now, the better.)
The biggest challenge, though, may not come from the competition, but from the Mavericks themselves—specifically, the availability of their two superstars. While Irving and Dončić played in all but two meaningless games during the finale of that second-half surge and playoff run, they missed a combined 32 games prior to the turnaround. Dončić, in particular, has missed an average of 15 games per season over the last three years, and the Mavericks have played below .500 basketball in his absence. With more depth and talent around him, the goal should be to reduce his minutes and usage, as well as his missed games. Reducing that latter number to 10 or fewer would automatically boost both the Mavericks’ win total and his MVP case.
At 32, and with a history of various leg injuries, Irving is a more fragile case. The last time he missed fewer than 20 games in a season was six years ago, during the 2018-19 campaign. If the Mavericks can get around 60 games from him this season, it would be a huge win. The bigger question with Irving is how long he can maintain his superstar-level production when he does play, a topic I explored over the summer on my Substack—and one that should give Mavericks fans reason for optimism heading into next season. The same goes for another year of growth and improvement from Lively.
The Mavericks’ unexpected Finals run last season raised expectations. They possess a top-three player in the NBA, if not the very best, and, finally, enough talent around him to win a title. Given that, the logical next step is not only to get back to the Finals, but to win it all. A tall task, but one that gets significantly easier by securing one of the top seeds and a more favorable playoff path.
Last year, the Mavs’ playoff journey pitted them against four of the NBA’s five best teams, and that impressive run left them out of gas at the final hurdle. A dominant regular season could go a long way toward ensuring they’ll have enough in the tank to make that final leap.
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