But it seems that Silver forgot to tell NBA stars like Doncic that hand-checking will be reinstated as well, and as a result, we’ve seen a league regression on offense and a lot of bad shooting.
So that’s the backdrop as Jason Kidd tries to keep this team afloat in the standings and instill a new identity despite getting just two and a half games out of Kristaps Porzingis thus far.
The first six games brought more questions than answers, some of which are more notable than others.
Doncic is a rhythm player, and he admitted recently that he’s still trying to find his way back into the rhythm of the NBA grind following a grueling summer.
With Doncic struggling to find his shot and no Porzingis to open the driving lanes, we’ve seen Kidd utilizing Doncic more in post-up situations, where he’s been among the most effective scorers in the NBA thus far.
His usage increased from 11 percent last season to 16 percent this season, and so far, that higher usage has resulted in more turnovers and Finney-Smith taking some unusual shots he is not used to taking .
So far, some of the new Kokoskov sets work great on out-of-the-timeouts situations—the Mavericks rank fourth and third in the league on those, respectively—when plays can be drawn and players know what to expect.
The offense would also look much better if the Mavericks could make more than 31 percent of their threes.
The new offense is a work in progress, but we’ve already seen that Kidd and Doncic will revert to “old” ways when things get tough.
The key thing to watch is what happens with the offense when Porzingis returns to the lineup.
In the win over the Spurs, the Mavericks were down 20 points early in the first quarter but managed to get back in the game by playing lockdown defense.
Schematically, Dallas is forcing the opponents into the right kind of shots; Mavericks opponents shoot the second-most long mid-range shots in the NBA, which are the least efficient look the game has to offer.
We need to see Porzingis back in the lineup, and we need to see the defense tested against good offensive teams that put pressure on the defensive rotations.
One of the bigger challenges for Kidd and his staff is that they almost need to build two systems, one on offense and another on defense, because of Porzingis.
The problem is the trio is not a good starting point to begin with: lineups featuring that group were terrible on defense last season, and early data from this season is not any different.
The Mavericks are currently outscored by 3.7 points in the first quarter and have had to play catch up in all but one of their games so far.
Based on the Latvian’s health—the enthusiasm from the first fully healthy offseason in Dallas evaporated in one week—I’m not sure we’ll see Kidd revert to this so early in the season.
Either way, though, something needs to change, and soon.