ESPN REPORT: Luka Doncic is suspended from all sports for placing a bet against d…..
Since Luka Dončić entered the NBA as a babyfaced 19-year-old wunderkind, no player in the league has created more 3-pointers for his teammates.
Dončić has thrown almost 4,200 passes that have led to attempted 3-pointers, which have resulted in 1,573 made shots. He’s delivered them with two hands or one, whipped across the court in a bullet or slung behind his back on the bounce. They’ve arrived with his eyes never making contact with his target or his body already sprawled onto the floor. They’ve been indiscriminately entrusted to some teammates who are among the league’s best shooters and others who aren’t, even to 20-year-old rookies in the NBA Finals without a single career make.
But Dončić has never been able to throw them to Klay Thompson until now.
So no, there’s nothing complicated about how Thompson, who has the sixth most made 3s in the league’s history, will fit into the Dallas Mavericks offense. He just has to raise his hands.
The Mavericks’ front office watched in pain as the team’s NBA Finals run ended in defeat to the Boston Celtics last month with an agonizing shooting display across the roster. That performance included erratic long-distance launches from Dončić and Kyrie Irving, but the subpar performances from the role players were more worrisome. Dallas’ non-stars made only 20 above-the-break 3s in the NBA Finals, and half of those makes came in the team’s lone Game 4 win. Boston’s brilliant defense diligently guarded the corners but often ignored those role players when they ventured above the break. Dallas’ 25.6-percent conversion rate on those shots justified the Celtics’ gambit and made life harder for Dončić and Irving. It was the offense that stole Dallas’ chance for glory.
It led to the front office setting out to refresh the team’s roster this summer, which it undeniably did. What effect it’ll have on the team’s defense and overall ceiling remains to be seen, but the Mavericks have replenished their shooting talent around the league’s best 3-point shot creator. Derrick Jones Jr. was replaced by Naji Marshall, who’s coming off the best 3-point shooting season of his career (39.1 percent). Jones averaged 3.0 attempts from 3 every 36 minutes prior to arriving in Dallas; Marshall averages 4.5 for his career without the luxury of Dončić’s passes. Josh Green was replaced by Quentin Grimes, who averages almost eight launches every 36 minutes with a career conversion rate of 37.1 percent. Those moves alone would have tilted Dallas’ shooting back toward the league’s upper echelon, where it has typically dwelled during the Dončić era.
It’s one thing to add reliable shooters like Marshall or even high-volume ones like Grimes. It’s another thing entirely to add arguably the best catch-and-shoot player of this NBA era.
