DALLAS — Trae Young made his annual trip to the AAC Wednesday, and while the Hawks left town a 130-122 winner, we can at least declare Luka Doncic and the Mavs — now and forever — the winner of the 2018 draft night trade with Atlanta.
Doncic entered the league at a slightly higher performance level than Young — not to be confused with “a step faster” — but the Hawks guard kept the argument close, especially when he led Atlanta to the Eastern Conference finals in 2021. Doncic matched that feat in the West last spring, and, as the league’s leading scorer, even the most impartial observer is going to take Luka over Trae and do it quickly. Doncic is featured in every reasonable MVP discussion this season and Young doesn’t factor into any of them.
The next question: Does that mean anything?
Less than two years after the Hawks made that surprising playoff run, the team is struggling along the .500 level — the win over Dallas elevated Atlanta to 23-22 — and there have been reports that neither the club nor Young would hate a trade. Doesn’t matter that Young is under contract, making between $40-49 million the next four seasons. You know how the NBA works.
And that brings us to Luka as he continues to produce monster numbers for a team that’s still chasing Sacramento for a spot in the West’s top four. In fact, after a fairly disastrous west coast trip, the 24-22 Mavs, who host Miami Friday, are much closer to the 13th-place Lakers than they are to Memphis and Denver.
Dallas might have been last spring’s surprise team of the postseason, eliminating No. 1 seed Phoenix in such fashion that the Suns appear to be finished for a long time. But this is a different season, and the two darlings of the West are the Nuggets and Grizzlies. Both are 20-3 at home this season.
The Mavs are eight games back, not so much because Dallas isn’t solid at home (16-7) but because the club has mostly stunk on the road (8-15). And the defense that was the club’s calling card in the playoffs has been far short of adequate.
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”I think our defense is ranked 25th. Ish,’’ Mavs coach Jason Kidd said. ”Not very good.‘’
He said injuries have limited his defense to “one or two pitches’’ and that the return of Dorian Finney-Smith and Josh Green Wednesday would point the defense in the right direction. He didn’t mean to suggest it would happen in one night as the Hawks scored 130 points while shooting an even 50 percent from the three-point arc and 60 percent inside of it.
Regardless, if the Mavericks don’t become a team that can blaze its way through the playoffs again, what does that spell for the future? How close are they to becoming the Hawks and, more importantly, how does Luka view his long-term future here?
Doncic says all the right things, talks up Dallas the same way Dirk Nowitzki did while making a home here for 21 seasons. That does not mean he is as committed to staying the course, and who knows how things might have played out with Dirk had the club not stepped up and won an NBA Championship in his 13th season.
A trip to the conference finals can be a building block for a champion team, but it can also represent something of much shorter duration — a team that was healthy and hot for the right month. There has been nothing in the Mavericks’ play this season to suggest that they are more than that.
It could turn out that improved defense in February and March increases this club’s postseason stock, but right now it’s not something you want to buy into with anything more than house money. In the end, I don’t expect Luka to be in a tight battle with Denver’s Nikola Jokic or Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo for that MVP trophy. Piling up incredible stats for a 60-win team goes a lot farther than setting club scoring records for a 45-win squad.
Barring a major trade before the deadline — unlikely for many reasons, the salary cap most notably — the Mavericks are who they appear to be this season. I don’t see them sliding below the .500 mark but 50 wins would require a miraculous 26-10 stretch the rest of the way. That’s not happening.
Dallas is looking for a way to string together some wins and make a run at a top four spot in a conference that’s not inferior but also not quite as top-heavy as the East. Next up is the Heat, their former Finals rival that is also wondering how last year’s run to a conference final can be rediscovered.
Learning from history is one thing, but repeating is entirely more challenging in the NBA.
