Dallas Mavericks: 3 bold predictions for 2019-20 NBA season

3. Tim Hardaway Jr. will have another career season

Tim Hardaway Jr. was having a good season with the New York Knicks as he averaged 19.1 points per contest. However, he — along with Porzingis, Trey Burke and Courtney Lee — were traded to the Mavericks in exchange for Dennis Smith Jr., DeAndre Jordan, Wesley Matthews and a pair of future first-round picks.

Following the trade, although Hardaway’s scoring did dip a bit (down to 15.5 points per contest), he was still the team’s third-leading scorer. Unfortunately, Hardaway would suit up just 19 times (17 starts) for the Mavericks due to a stress reaction in his left tibia, that forced him to miss the final 11 games of the season.

Hardaway averaged a career-high 18.1 points scattered across 65 games between the Mavericks and the Knicks last season. On one hand, Hardaway hasn’t shot the ball at an uber-efficient rate during his NBA career. In fact, he has connected on just 41.8 percent of his attempts from the field.

On the flip side of the narrative, he has increased his scoring output in each of the last three seasons. Furthermore, he shot the ball slightly better with the Mavericks (40.4 percent) than he did with the Knicks (38.8 percent) and maybe a full season under Rick Carlisle will help that trend continue.

Bearing that in mind, not only will Hardaway continue to be a viable scoring option for Dallas, he is going to turn in another career season and I’ll go out a limb and predict that he will post a conversion rate between 43-45 percent.