Five Key Offseason Questions: Dallas Mavericks

After making the playoffs 15 of 16 times from 2001-16, the Mavericks have now missed out on the postseason for three straight years, failing to surpass 33 wins in a single season during that stretch.

Having tried in vain to build one more contending team during Dirk Nowitzki‘s twilight years, the Mavs switched gears in 2018/19 and began looking ahead to the future. That meant moving up in the draft to nab potential franchise player Luka Doncic and then surrendering a few more assets – and taking on some unwanted contracts – to acquire a potential long-term running mate for Doncic (Kristaps Porzingis) at the trade deadline.

The Mavs still have plenty of work to do on the rest of their roster, but with a pair of potential stars in the mix, the organization no longer feels like it’s treading water in the same way it did during many of Nowitzki’s final few seasons.

Here are five key questions facing the franchise this summer:

1. What will Kristaps Porzingis’ new contract look like?

A healthy, scandal-free version of Porzingis would likely receive a maximum salary contract from just about any team capable of offering him one as a restricted free agent. That isn’t the version the Mavericks have though.

A torn ACL has sidelined Porzingis for nearly a season and a half. He hasn’t appeared in an NBA game since February 6, 2018, and it’s not as if he was a paragon of health before that injury — he missed 10 games in his rookie year and 16 more in his sophomore season. There’s no indication that he won’t be back to 100% for the start of the 2019/20 campaign, but that injury history is still concerning for a 7’3″ big man.

On top of that, Porzingis is facing a rape accusation related to an encounter that allegedly occurred during his time with the Knicks. The timeline for that case remains unclear, and the Mavs will have to be extra cautious as they navigate the situation after dealing with allegations of sexual misconduct within their workplace a year ago.

While it’s hard to predict how those allegations will impact contract negotiations this summer, Joel Embiid‘s deal with the Sixers could at least provide a framework for how to handle Porzingis’ injury history.

Embiid’s five-year, maximum salary extension with Philadelphia was worth the 25% max, and could have increased to the 30% max if he had earned First Team All-NBA honors in 2018. However, the deal also contained language that would have made future salaries non-guaranteed if Embiid suffered another major injury related to one of his previous health problems. So far, that deal has worked out for both sides, so perhaps the Mavs and Porzingis will explore a similar arrangement.

2. What will the Mavericks do with their cap room?

Finding common ground with Porzingis will be important, since reaching an agreement with KP and then waiting to officially re-sign him will allow the Mavericks to maximize their projected cap room. Porzingis’ cap hold is worth about $17MM, and as long as they keep that hold on their books, the Mavs will be able to go over the cap later in free agency to give him a higher salary.

Currently, the Mavs project to have about $29-30MM in available cap space. That’s not quite enough for a maximum salary contract for a veteran with seven-plus years of NBA experience, but it’s enough to make a strong offer to a player who is a borderline max candidate, and Dallas appears to be shopping in that aisle.

A recent report indicated that point guard Kemba Walker and shooting guard Khris Middleton are among the free agents on the Mavs’ wish list. Both would be very nice additions — Middleton’s three-and-D style fits on any roster, and Walker could certainly coexist with Doncic, given his catch-and-shoot ability. Nikola Vucevic has also been cited as a potential target, though there are conflicting reports on Dallas’ level of interest in the Magic center.

Of course, the Mavericks’ last few forays into the upper echelon of free agency haven’t been major successes. Wesley Matthews and Harrison Barnes are the only big names the team has signed as free agents since 2015, and even calling them “big names” might be a stretch. Perhaps the presence of Doncic and Porzingis attracts a new caliber of free agent, but Dallas should be wary about throwing a ton of money at players in that Matthews/Barnes tier. Using that cap room on one-year signings – or to accommodate salary dumps – might make more sense.

3. Are Tim Hardaway Jr. and Courtney Lee keepers?

Hardaway and Lee were the pieces the Mavericks had to take on to make the Porzingis trade work. Their contracts run through 2020 (Lee) or 2021 (Hardaway), so the Knicks had to get off them to open up two max slots for the summer of 2019.

If the Mavs trade one or the other in the coming months, they could create even more cap room of their own for the 2019 offseason. However, I don’t expect that to happen.

While they’re both a little overpriced, Lee and Hardaway can still be useful assets on the court. Lee is just a year removed from averaging 12.0 PPG on .454/.406/.919 shooting, and is a 38.7% career three-point shooter. Hardaway averaged a career-high 18.1 PPG and is capable of handling some play-making duties when Doncic needs a break.

Both players dealt with injuries in 2018/19 and weren’t at their best, so I’d expect the Mavs to hope for better health from the duo in 2019/20. If they can increase their value with strong performances in the first half, they could become positive trade assets by the ’20 deadline.

4. What’s the Mavs’ plan for Dwight Powell?

Powell holds a $10,259,375 player option for next season, but it sounds like his offseason won’t just be a matter of making a decision on whether to exercise or decline that option.

Mavs owner Mark Cuban suggested in a radio appearance last month that Dallas plans to extend Powell for multiple seasons, and Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News recently tweeted about Powell’s upcoming extension as if it’s a given.

While it sounds like Powell will stick around beyond 2019/20, we still don’t know exactly what that new deal will look like, or how it will happen. If Powell opts out and re-signs with Dallas as a free agent, it would give both sides more flexibility in terms of years and starting salary. However, a veteran extension is also a possibility if Powell simply picks up his option — the extension would simply begin a year later.

The veteran power forward averaged 10.6 PPG and 5.3 RPG with a .597 FG% in 77 games (21.6 MPG) this season, and could be in line for a larger role with Nowitzki retiring, so it will be interesting to see what his new deal looks like.

5. Will the Mavericks keep their first-round pick?

There’s nothing the Mavs can do at this point to swing this question one way or the other — the answer will be determined by a series of ping-pong balls at the draft lottery on May 14.

The NBA’s new lottery format could help Dallas out. Under the old system, the Mavs – who finished in a three-way tie for seventh place in the lottery standings – would have had just a 10% chance of jumping into the top three and keeping their top-five protected pick. The new system gives the club a 26.2% chance to move into the top four, as our lottery odds chart shows. That means there’s a 73.8% chance the pick heads to Atlanta.

Unlike the Grizzlies, who have a top-eight protected pick and hope it conveys this year so that they can move onto a potential rebuild without having that commitment hanging over their heads, the Mavs would probably prefer to keep their pick. Adding another top-four caliber talent to their roster would put the club in better position to contend sooner rather than later, and could mean handing over a much less favorable first-rounder next year.

Plus, because the Mavs traded away two more first-round picks in their deal for Porzingis, it benefits the team to have those selections pushed back as much as possible as a result of the Stepien rule, which prevents clubs from trading consecutive future first-rounders. The longer their commitment to the Hawks gets postponed, the less likely the Mavs are to ultimately send two future first-rounders to the Knicks — the second of those picks (top-10 protected) must be conveyed by 2025, or it will turn into a second-rounder.

Check out the Dallas Mavericks’ offseason salary cap outlook right here.

Salary information from Basketball Insiders was used in the creation of this post. Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.