“Those MFFL Fans, That’s Real.” Tim Hardaway Jr., Dallas Mavericks proving perfect fit
By Mike Philly
The best offense in NBA history?
If the NBA doesn’t play another game in the 2019-20 season, the Dallas Mavericks will finish the year with the greatest offense in NBA history. No, that is not a joke. With their 116.7 ORtg for the season, the Mavericks have a pretty comfortable margin between themselves and the second-best 2018-19 Warriors (115.9).
For context, that same margin is what separates those Warriors from the tenth-best all-time ORtg, which belongs to Shaquille O’Neal’s 1994-95 Orlando Magic. So, that begs this question of the Mavericks: is this real? And, if it is real, there’s absolutely no way that Tim Hardaway Jr. is the key, right? Some eye-opening numbers suggest that the answer to both of those questions is ‘yes.’
Between Hardaway’s first start of the season and the suspension of play due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Dallas Mavericks ORtg went from being an impressive 114.2 to literally being the best in NBA history. In Hardaway’s 50 starts, the Mavericks had an absurd ORtg of 118.2. Per basketball-reference, in his 13 games as a reserve, Hardaway posted an awful average individual ORtg of 99. In his 50 starts, that number ballooned to 117. For the season, Hardaway ranked sixth in the NBA with a 115.8 individual ORtg.
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Understanding that individual ORtg can be attributed by who a player shares the floor with, it’s pertinent to consider how the sharp spike in shared minutes with Luka Dončić – who led the NBA with a 117.0 individual ORtg – might or might not have played a factor in Hardaway’s success. In 1,815 minutes played this season, he shared the floor with Dončić for 1,032 of them.
In those minutes, the Mavericks had a 117.7 ORtg and 106.9 Defensive Rating (DRtg), for a Net Rating (NRtg) of 10.8, the highest of any two players in the Western Conference with a minimum of 1,000 minutes played together (yes, even better than LeBron James and Anthony Davis). This is not to argue against the idea that Dončić makes Tim Hardaway a better basketball player, as that is canon. This is, however, definitely an assertion that Hardaway is doing more than just pulling his own weight.
In terms of how he thinks the Dallas Mavericks stack up against the NBA’s other heavyweights, despite not being the topic of as much discussion, he offered a fair assessment to Hoops Habit. “Well I think our record speaks for itself, and there are a number of really good teams. We’re better than our record is, but at the end of the day you got to go with that,” Hardaway admitted.