ESPN’s Brian Windhorst released his preseason rankings of the top five NBA teams entering the year. He placed the Dallas Mavericks fifth behind Boston, Oklahoma City, Denver, and Minnesota.
The four teams in front of Dallas are all outstanding NBA teams that will be competing for the championship this season. Still, the Mavericks are coming off an NBA Finals appearance and should be even better than they were last year.
The Celtics should definitely be ranked ahead of them because they are the reigning champions and just beat Dallas in a seven-game series. However, after winning the West, the Mavericks probably feel like they are better than the other three teams.
Adding Klay Thompson to the roster is shaping up as an underrated pickup going unnoticed by NBA analysts. Not enough people are talking about how much Dallas improved compared to the other teams in the Western Conference thanks to the addition of the sharpshooter.
The Mavericks’ competitors made some solid moves around the margins, but no one added an impact player at the level of Thompson. Sure, he is an aging player who has dealt with injuries, but if he has anything left in the tank, his fit will be seamless next to Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
Last year, during their playoff run, it seemed that the only thing missing was a knockdown shooter who could take some pressure off the two dynamic playmakers.
Maybe Windhorst is right, but it seems like he is not taking into account what happened at the end of the regular season and in the playoffs when Dallas went 29-9 before running into Boston. He also might be underestimating how much of an impact Thompson could make this year.
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