“Those MFFL Fans, That’s Real.” Tim Hardaway Jr., Dallas Mavericks proving perfect fit

2019 post-trade

In 46 games (all starts) for the Knicks before the trade, Hardaway Jr. averaged 19.1 points on 15.8 field goal attempts per game, posting .388/.347/.854 shooting splits. Uninspiring? Certainly, and he didn’t necessarily have an epiphany once he joined the Dallas Mavericks. In 19 games (17 starts) with Dallas, Hardaway averaged 15.5 points on 14.1 field goal attempts per game, putting up .404/.321/.767 splits before a stress reaction in his left tibia caused him to miss the final 11 games of the season.

Hardaway should, by and large, be exempt from any critique of those 2019 pace laps with Dallas. He was inserted into a new offense halfway through the year and, therefore, spent most of his time in Dallas getting acclimated to a new role and cast of teammates before suffering his injury. Numbers can be deceiving in those scenarios. In that sense, growing pains were expected.

When head coach Rick Carlisle announced that Hardaway Jr. was out for the season on March 21, he revealed that the organization was intrigued and impressed with Hardaway’s fit. “We really like him as a player. He fits what we’re building here for the future,” Carlisle told reporters at the time. Following surgery on April 18, Hardaway spent the summer recovering and working to be fully healthy by training camp in September.

Hardaway expanded on the importance of getting his body right over the offseason, stressing that the most important thing he had learned between college and where he is now is “just being prepared for the workload. It’s 82 games, that’s twice as many as you play in college, including the tournament. It’s just a learning process the first couple of years, you make sure in the summertime that you maintain your body,” he told HoopsHabit. “Make sure you do whatever you can to get ready for next year.”