Dallas Mavericks: Ranking all 5 starters for the 2021-22 season

Dallas Mavericks starters ranked: 1. PG Luka Doncic

Who else? Luka Doncic is not just the top player on the Mavs, but he’s arguably one of the top players in the entire NBA. Dallas will run through him for as long as he’ll have them.

Doncic was an All-NBA First Team player for the second time in 2020-21. He averaged 27.7 points, 8.6 assists and 8.0 rebounds per game. All of those numbers are down from the previous season, but they aren’t anything people should be thumbing their noses at either.

Besides, Doncic showed growth in one of the more beleaguered aspects of his game. He hit 35 percent of his 3-point attempts during the regular season, easily the best of his career. He was even better in the postseason, hitting 40.8 percent of his threes.

In August, Doncic signed a five-year, $207 million rookie extension, the largest in the history of the league. There’s no doubt that he’s worth every penny of that.

The hope for the franchise is that Jason Kidd helps unlock some sort of new element to Doncic’s game. What that will be is hard to say since Doncic already does so much, but it can’t hurt to have the tutelage of one of the game’s great point guards.

There has been some drama around Doncic’s future, but that’s part and parcel with being a star in the modern NBA. The extension makes it clear that the Mavericks are rolling with the Slovenian, for better or worse.

The Mavericks hope to start showing some progress this year and advance past the First Round of the playoffs. Luka Doncic will be the reason they succeed.