DALLAS – The first half of the season was not much fun for Kristaps Porzingis.
He missed the first nine games of the Dallas Mavericks while recovering from surgery to repair the meniscus injury in his left knee that forced him to be left out of the final games of his first NBA playoff series. Porzingis’ fights, particularly defensively, ranked as perhaps the second most significant factor (after a half-round outbreak of COVID-19) in Dallas, arguably the most disappointing team in the league six weeks after the start of the season.
And Porzingis heard his name appear in the commercial rumor. Although Mavs owner Mark Cuban and coach Rick Carlisle have publicly stated that the team has not been involved in commercial discussions about Porzingis, the perception among league executives is that he is available.
The reality is that leaving Porzingis would likely represent a major setback for the Mavs, who envisioned him as Luka Doncic’s long-term co-star when they negotiated for him two years ago. Dallas needs Porzingis, who is in the second season of a maximum five-year contract worth $ 158 million, to play to his full potential as a “unicorn” with his combination of skills to be any kind of threat in the competitive Western Conference.
The good news: Porzingis has provided glimpses of that possibility again recently. His first performance after the All-Star break – a 28-point game with 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 having the surgery, the leg is no longer the same, so you have to keep working on that strength and make sure it is strong and stable and you feel confident in the end. It’s a I work around the clock, but I’m feeling better every day and every game, and I’m working, it just gives me the confidence that I can go out and play freely.
“I’m looking forward to the second part of the season.”
Porzingis’ health will always be a primary concern, and Mavs must manage their workload carefully during the compressed second half of the season. He has not yet ended a healthy campaign during his more than four-year career in the NBA, and there are complications that come along with a six-foot body that has already needed surgery on both knees.
Coach Rick Carlisle repeatedly referred to the physical challenges of returning from knee surgery – and a rehabilitation process that led him to miss the training ground – as the reason why Porzingis often resembled the world’s tallest traffic cone in the world. defensive edge this season.
“My feeling is that he is in fashion all the time,” Carlisle said on Wednesday, giving credit to Porzingis for putting in the work necessary to make such progress. “There is more evidence of this tonight.”
There is also compelling statistical evidence for Porzingis, who was a two-way force at the end of last season. Two months after the start of the season, Porzingis had the second worst defensive ranking among rotating players in the league, as the Mavs allowed 119.5 points for every 100 possessions with him on the ground, an embarrassment for a player who trusted the protection of the rim. Take this with a small sample alert, but since Porzingis returned from a brief absence due to stiffness in his lower back, his defensive rating has been petty 103.1 in four games, all victories for the Mavs, who have achieved their streak of success. Longest wins of the season to improve to 19-16.
Porzingis has been very good offensively this season, averaging 20.5 points per game with an effective field goal percentage of 54.6%. He has been extremely efficient as the Mavs dug their way out of a five-game hole below 0.500, hitting 50% of their pitches from the ground and 40% of the 3-point interval, as Dallas won 10 of the last 12 games that Porzingis played.
Carlisle pointed out that Porzingis is getting a sense of all the different ways the teams defend him, which has often kept him with a much shorter player and essentially challenging Dallas to bog down his attack by feeding him on the pole. Porzingis was 11-of-17 off the ground against the Spurs, scoring in a number of ways, including some cuts in the second half when he was powered by Doncic, the kind of chemistry Mavs need from his franchise’s cornerstone.
“We are all progressing as a team,” said Doncic, who had a 22-point triple-double, 12 rebounds and 12 assists against Spurs. “KP has been doing a lot better. He is gaining confidence [coming back] of his injury, and I think he’s still going to build his confidence, and he’s going to get a lot better. “