Dallas Mavericks: Michigan duo coming up huge for Mavs in NBA playoffs

The Dallas Mavericks are led by their Boy Wonder, Luka Doncic, but a pair of Michigan men, Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr., are coming up huge for them in the NBA playoffs.

In the NBA playoffs, teams go as far as their superstar can carry them, but it takes more than just the superstar to maximize their chances to win a championship. We may not be talking about the Dallas Mavericks as title candidates anytime soon, but they have the superstar in Luka Doncic, and that’s the first part.

The second part, the supporting cast, can be almost elusive to find and put in positions to succeed at the highest level. Sometimes these role players are found in the draft, or via trade or in free agency, and occasionally they can be found on the waiver wire after being given up on by multiple teams.

In assembling Luka Doncic’s supporting cast, the Dallas Mavericks rely on a wide array of players. Among the biggest contributors so far in the bubble and the first round of the NBA playoffs are a pair of former University of Michigan teammates: Tim Hardaway Jr. and Trey Burke.

They took vastly different paths to the point they find themselves today, on a potent offensive squad with a young transcendent Doncic. Tim Hardaway Jr. was drafted 24th in the 2013 NBA draft by the New York Knicks, and he bounced to the Atlanta Hawks and back to New York before being included as fodder in the trade that sent Kristaps Porzingis to Dallas.

He signed a four-year, $71 million contract in 2017 with the Knicks, and while it was derided at the time as one of the worst deals in the NBA, it’s looking a whole lot better now. This season he shot a career-high 39.8 percent from 3-point range, blowing away his previous best of 36.3 percent in his rookie season.

Hardaway is a lethal weapon alongside Porzingis and Doncic, and he’s a solid offensive stop-gap when Doncic or Porzingis has to go to the bench.

Trey Burke’s path to redemption with the Dallas Mavericks

As for Burke, his path was a darker route.

He was selected in that same 2013 NBA draft and played his rookie season with the Utah Jazz but just never put things together, at least not so much that he could get an extended multi-year run with a team. Burke spent the first three years of his NBA career with the Jazz before bouncing around between the New York Knicks, the Washington Wizards, the Mavs and the Philadelphia 76ers.

Ironically enough, the Sixers waived him on February 6th, and that’s a team that could have used his ball-handling and shooting in the bubble and the playoffs. However, the Sixers’ loss was gain for the Dallas Mavericks and Burke has made the most of his chance at redemption in the NBA playoffs.

We can definitely chalk this up to some positive variance, but in Burke’s eight bubble seeding games, he had shooting splits of .427/.432/.909, and so far through the first four games of the first round of the NBA playoffs, he’s shooting 57.9 percent from the floor and 50.0 percent from 3-point range.

Surely he’ll cool down at some point, but the thing about the playoffs is that a hot run can last a whole series or two. Trey Burke’s contributions have been valuable and his sparkplug offensive game irreplaceable.

Not long ago, it seemed like Burke’s best days were behind him, his last chance at NBA stardom a memory. In the NBA playoffs, however, Burke and Hardaway have had the opportunity to revisit their Michigan glory days together, and to do so on the sport’s biggest stage.