DALLAS – The first half of the season was not very nice for Kristaps Porzingis.
He missed the Dallas Mavericks’ first nine games while recovering from surgery to repair the meniscus injury in his left knee that forced him to sit out the last few games of his first NBA playoff series. Porzingis’ fight, especially defensively, was ranked as arguably the second most important factor (after a COVID-19 outbreak that hit half the rotation) in Dallas, arguably the league’s most disappointing team six weeks after The season.
And Porzingis heard his name pop up in the rumor mill. While Mavs owner Mark Cuban and coach Rick Carlisle stated publicly that the team had not had any trade talks on Porzingis, the perception among league executives is that he is available.
The reality is that leaving Porzingis would likely be a big step backwards for the Mavs, who saw him as Luka Doncic’s longtime co-star when they traded for him two years ago. Dallas needs Porzingis, who is on the second season of a $ 158 million five-year contract, to harness his “unicorn” potential with his mix of skills to be some sort of threat in the competitive Western Conference.
The good news: Porzingis recently showed another glimpse of that possibility. His first appearance after the All-Star break – a game of 28 points and 14 rebounds in Wednesday’s 115-104 victory over the San Antonio Spurs – was certainly encouraging.
“I feel like I’m getting there,” said Porzingis. “I still have to keep working. After you have the surgery, the leg doesn’t feel the same, so you have to keep working on that strength and make sure it’s strong and stable and you feel confident at the end. working non-stop, but i feel better every day and every game, and i do my job, that just gives me the confidence that i can go out and play and play freely.
“I’m looking forward to the second part of the season.”
Porzingis’ health will always be the number one concern, and the Mavs must carefully manage his workload during the compressed second half of the season. He has yet to finish a healthy campaign during his four-year NBA career, and there are complications associated with a 7-foot-3 body already requiring surgery on both knees.
Coach Rick Carlisle has repeatedly pointed to the physical challenges of coming back from knee surgery – and a rehabilitation process that caused him to miss training camp – as the reason Porzingis often looked like the world’s highest traffic cone on the defensive side this season.
“I feel like he’s trending all the time,” said Carlisle Wednesday, giving Porzingis credit for the work it took to make such progress. “There’s more evidence of it tonight.”
There is also compelling statistical evidence of Porzingis, who was a two-way force late last season. Two months into the start of this season, Porzingis had the second worst defense rating among the league’s rotational players as the Mavs got 119.5 points per 100 assets on the ground with him, an embarrassment for a player he relied on to to provide rim protection. Take this with a little caveat, but since Porzingis returned from a brief absence due to a lower back tightness, his defensive rating was a stingy 103.1 in four games, all wins for the Mavs, who have their longest winning streak of the season. matched. to improve to 19-16.
Porzingis has been offensive this season, averaging 20.5 points per game and an effective field goal percentage of 54.6%. He was extremely efficient as the Mavs dug their way out of a five games hole under .500, hitting 50% of his shots from the floor and 40% from the 3-point range, as Dallas has 10 in the past has won. 12 games Porzingis has played.
Carlisle pointed out that Porzingis gets a sense of all the different ways teams defend him, often guarding him with a much shorter player and essentially challenging Dallas to mitigate his offense by running him into the post. Porzingis was 11-of-17 from the floor against the Spurs, scoring in a variety of ways, including a few second-half cuts when he was fueled by Doncic, the kind of chemistry the Mavs need from their franchise cornerstones.
“We’re all making progress as a team,” said Doncic, who had a 22-point, 12-rebound, 12-assist triple-double against Spurs. ‘KP has been much better. He has gained confidence [coming back] of his injury, and I think he will still build his confidence, and he will get much better. “