Dallas Mavericks look to do some damage with their own star duo

Storyline No. 3: Is there enough shooting?

The Dallas Mavericks will likely throw big doses of two-man actions with Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis at opposing defenses this season.

To take full advantage of that, the Mavericks will need to have enough shooting to make teams pay if they try to overload against the dynamic duo.

The Mavericks brought Seth Curry back to Dallas after he had a breakout season for the Mavericks in 2016-17, when he averaged a career-high 12.8 points per game and shot 42.5 percent from 3-point range.

Last season with the Portland Trail Blazers, Curry finished third in the league in 3-point shooting at 45.0 percent. While he doesn’t have his older brother’s overall game, Curry has developed into one of the NBA’s elite shooters, with his career 43.9 percent mark from deep ranked No. 1 among active players and third-best in NBA history.

Tim Hardaway Jr. may be the big key for the first unit. Never anything more than a streaky-at-best shooter, Hardaway averaged 18.1 points per game, a career-high, last season in 65 games, but dropped to 15.5 points per game in 19 games with Dallas.

But he shot only 39.3 percent overall and just 34 percent from deep on 7.3 attempts per game. The Mavericks will need Hardaway to capitalize on the open looks he should get as teams try to contain the LukaCorn combination.

Delon Wright, acquired from the Memphis Grizzlies in a sign-and-trade deal, has never shown a great aptitude for the deep ball, shooting only 29.8 percent last season in 2.2 attempts per game and making only 25.6 percent of his 3.0 tries a night in 26 games after being traded from the Toronto Raptors to Memphis.

Dwight Powell showed some potential as an evolving stretch big, shooting 44.4 percent on 2.0 attempts per game in 22 starts after DeAndre Jordan went to the New York Knicks in the deal that brought Porzingis and Hardaway to Dallas.

But that late-season outburst only brought his percentage for the season up to 30.7 percent on 1.6 attempts a night — he was just 19-for-82 (23.2 percent) in 55 games before his late flurry.

If Dallas can get enough shooting, then Doncic and Porzingis should have a lot of space with which to do their thing. But if the Mavericks can’t consistently knock down open looks, that could clog the middle of the floor significantly.

Best-case scenario

In a perfect world, Luka Doncic improves significantly in his second season, enough to become a low-key contender for NBA MVP honors, and the Dallas Mavericks return to the playoffs as a bottom-four seed in a jam-packed Western Conference.

Kristaps Porzingis is healthier and stronger than he’s ever been and the tandem makes a push to reach the All-Star Game, which would be the first time the Mavericks have two players named since Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki in 2010.

Tim Hardaway Jr. settles into life as the No. 3 option and thrives, putting up similar numbers to last season with a lot fewer shots, showing he can do more with less when he’s not trying to carry the entire load for a bad team as he had to do in New York.

Coach Rick Carlisle, in his 12th season in Dallas, makes a run at his second Coach of the Year award by leading the Mavericks to the 46-48 victory range as he pushes the right buttons on the rotation to maximize the young talent he’s got.

Worst-case scenario

The Mavericks can score, but opponents can score more … much more. Doncic continues to have trouble finding a position he can guard effectively and with Porzingis not able to take the pounding down low, Dallas’ rim protection options revolve around the few effective minutes Boban Marjanovic can stay on the floor.

Delon Wright struggles in his first stint as a full-time starter and eventually goes to the bench in favor of the more effective offensive player, Seth Curry, but that doesn’t do the defense any favors either.

The Mavericks finish the season high on pure entertainment value as their games will be generally high-scoring affairs. The problem will be they will end up on the wrong end of most of those track meets and, like so many all-offense, no-defense teams before them, Dallas finishes in the lottery with a marginal improvement to 35 wins.