Mavs Step Back: Record Prediction, Suns Opener Preview & Doncic’s MVP Chances

Will Luka Doncic finally win MVP this year? Christian Wood's offense should be fine, but will he be able to play defense as well? How many games will the Dallas Mavericks win? All that and more is discussed on this edition of the Mavs Step Back Podcast.

Dalton Trigg | Oct 17, 2022

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After an entire offseason of speculation, the slightly-retooled Dallas Mavericks are finally going to show us what they've got as they open the 2022-23 NBA season at the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday night.

The last time these two teams met, the Mavs were victorious in a 123-90 Game 7 road win that catapulted them into the Western Conference Finals. The Suns might be playing this one off as being just a regular game, but it wouldn't shock us if they played with a little extra juice in this particular season opener.

One thing is for sure – the Mavs will be playing with an edge this season, as they feel like others around the league think their conference finals run last year was a fluke. Despite the extra motivation, though, Dallas still has some things to figure out before we can truly label them as a championship contender or not.

Will Luka Doncic, who appears to be in arguably the best shape of his career heading into a season, finally break through and win the MVP award after being the betting favorite to do so for three consecutive years now? Whether he wins the award or not, Doncic is poised to have a monster statistical year regardless.

Christian Wood displayed how valuable he can be for the Mavs' offense during the preseason, as he averaged 17 points and 8.3 rebounds while shooting 53 percent from the field and 41 percent from deep in just 22 minutes off the bench. However, can Wood prove capable of being a decent defender as well? If he can, coach Jason Kidd might have him as the starting center sooner than later.

All of this and much, much more is discussed at length on this edition of the Mavs Step Back Podcast. You can listen to the entire episode here:

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Published Oct 17, 2022

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.