NBA

NBA legend Reggie Miller suggests that Luka Doncic is also at fault for Dallas’ failure: ‘He must start looking in the mirror’

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Antonio Kozlow
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Antonio Kozlow Sports Editor

Antonio is a life long sports enthusiast and professional journalist, who shares an obssesive urge to find and dig up the most interesting facts to guide gamblers towards more exciting, yet safe bets. In his own words, ''you can never really know enough about the things you love''.

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Sports Editor

Updated14 Apr 2023

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For the first time in four years, the Mavericks have failed to qualify for the postseason, as they didn’t even rank in the first top 10 teams in the West, even missing out on the Play-In. A lot have been said about it as fingers are being pointed around, trying to find reason out of such a succesful franchise suffering such a mediocre campaign.

Believe it or not, Dallas was at a comfortable third place in the Western Conference standings by midseason, and somehow Jason Kidd’s team ended the tournament with the second-fewest fast-break points per game and the league’s third-slowest offense with 97.21 possessions per contest.

One of the fingers is now being pointed at star Luka Doncic, after NBA legend Reggie Miller said he also needs to consider his part of the blame in all of this fiasco.

Recently interviewed, the former Pacers star talked about the Texan squad and its main player, as Miller even dared to mention the Slovenian’s physical shape.

“Luka Doncic has got to get in better shape. They’ve got to run more, and I think they did that when Luka was out and Kyrie was at the helm because they’re much better when they play faster”, he said about the former Euroleague athlete.

“That’s how Jason Kidd wants to coach. He wants them to play faster, but when Luka’s in there, they can’t play fast. To me, if he’s in better shape and they can play fast, that puts more pressure on the opposing team”, Miller commented on the Mavericks’ situation, who finished this season with a 38-44 record.

It’s hard to think of the 24-year-old as part to blame for Dallas’ failures, considering the point guard averaged 32.4 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 8.0 assists per match, by the end of the 2022-23 NBA regular season.

The Mavs have a lot of tough decisions to make this offseason

The Dallas administration have a lot to think about now and many vital decisions should be made by summer. One of them is surrounding star Kyrie Irving, as the Mavericks traded in for him and sent Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith and draft picks to Brooklyn by the end of the last transfer deadline.

The former Nets player joined Luka Doncic in the backcourt, but didn’t find the correct formula on the floor to take the team to the playoffs. As Irving can become a free agent this summer, Dallas’ General Manager Nico Harrison feels optimistic that the point guard will want to stay in Texas saying: “I think Luka and [Kyrie] work together.”

Check out April 12th edition of Speak, were Emmanuel Acho, Joy Taylor, Ric Bucher and David Helman discuss how good of an idea is to maintain both stars in Dallas:

The league opened an investigation over why the Mavs held out many of their key players as they still had mathematical chances of making it to the Play-in Tournament last week. The Texan team ended up losing 115 to 112 after blowing an 11-point advantage in the last quarter.

“The NBA commenced an investigation today into the facts and circumstances surrounding the Dallas Mavericks’ roster decisions and game conduct with respect to last night’s Chicago Bulls-Mavericks game, including the motivations behind those actions,” league representant Mike Bass announced.