Doncic's Mavs Land How High In NBA Power Rankings?

The expectations for Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks are already starting to skyrocket for next season with ESPN placing them 5th in their 'Way-Too-Early' NBA Power Rankings.

Dalton Trigg | Oct 13, 2020

The 2019-2020 NBA season just officially ended, with Finals MVP LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers securing the championship against the Miami Heat in six games. But that doesn't mean we can't go ahead and look forward to next season ...

On Monday, ESPN released its 'Way-Too-Early' Power Rankings for the 2021 season, and here's how the top-5 played out:

Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Clippers
Milwaukee Bucks
Denver Nuggets
Dallas Mavericks

Luka Doncic's emergence as an MVP candidate gives the Mavericks legitimate hopes of being a championship contender earlier than anticipated, although they need co-star Kristaps Porzingis to stay healthy. All signs indicate that the Mavs won't make a major offseason splash until 2021, when Dallas can create a max slot for a free agent with a little salary-cap tinkering. Expect the Mavs, however, to hunt for some veteran toughness. It's clear that an upgraded defense (ranked 18th this season) is needed to complement Dallas' historically efficient offense. -- Tim MacMahon

Some might say that ranking the Mavs as a top-five team next season is rushing things, but when are we going to stop placing ceilings on what Luka Doncic is capable of? Heading into his sophomore season, Doncic held the eighth best odds to win league MVP, and he topped those odds by finishing fourth in MVP voting and was an All-NBA First Team selection as well.

The Mavs were projected by many to barely make the playoffs, yet the Mavs finished seventh with a 7.5-game cushion over the eighth-seeded Portland Blazers, and just four games back of the third-seeded Denver Nuggets. The Mavs then pushed a star-studded Los Angeles Clippers team to six games in the first round of the playoffs.

Dallas accomplished all of this despite Doncic battling multiple ankle injuries throughout the season and Porzingis sitting out all back-to-backs, so why not expect the team to make another gigantic leap next season?

Whether the Mavs make a big move this offseason or a series of smaller moves, it's not hard to see the team getting better for next season. If last season's team would've had a few more veteran wing players, we don't think it's a reach to think they could've potentially made it to the Western Conference Finals to face the Lakers.

In early September, we wrote about how the expectations for Doncic and the Mavs were going to rise going forward, and here, with these 'Way-Too-Early' Power Rankings, you have your first glimpse at what we were talking about.

"My goal at the start of every season is to win a championship," said Doncic in his final postgame press conference of the 2019-2020 season. "There is no other goal ... that is going to be mine."

Doncic's first realistic chance of chasing that lofty goal will begin in approximately four months or so, and we simply can't wait to see what great things he does next. Now back to monitoring the Mavs' offseason with seemingly endless possibilities ...

Published Oct 13, 2020

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.