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

Cementing his starting role

Since his first start of the season against Golden State, Hardaway played in 50 games and started every single one. In those 50 starts, he put up not only his best numbers as a Dallas Maverick but as an NBA player, without question. Take a more in-depth look, and there are a few stats that particularly stand out. Initially, the traditional stats seem to paint a pretty good picture.

Hardaway raised his averages from 10.2 points, 2.2 rebounds, and 1.5 assists as a reserve to 17.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 2.1 assists as a starter, per basketball-reference. Hardaway’s shooting percentages underwent a triple bypass – as he bypassed no triples – steadily rising upon his insertion into the starting five, and his splits jumped from .344/.295/.731 to .455/.430/.816.

But, just how good of a picture is ‘pretty good’? If this were a Larry David skit, that would suffice. Alas, this is an analysis of Tim Hardaway’s impact on the Mavericks historic offense, so we turn to the analytics. Why settle for a pretty good picture when Ansel Adams is offering his services?

Earlier, it was mentioned that the Mavericks had an ORtg of 114.2 in Hardaway’s 13 games off the bench, as he was performing on par with a G Leaguer. Rummaging through stats on basketball-reference and nba.com, the advanced numbers show that his mid-season transformation was unprompted and unprecedented, both individually and how it impacted his team. So once Hardaway became a starter and found his groove, what kind of influence did it have on the already-great Dallas offense? Sure enough, a historical one.