DALLAS — Asked for one word to summarize the Dallas Mavericks‘ approach this season, superstar Luka Doncic thought for several seconds before coming up with his answer.
“Championship,” Doncic said at Monday’s media day at the team’s practice facility before the Mavs departed to Las Vegas for training camp. “That’s the goal.”
The hope is that Klay Thompson, a four-time champion during his 13-year tenure with the Golden State Warriors, can be the final piece to the Mavs’ title puzzle after arriving as a prized free agent addition this summer.
“I feel like our dreams can be possible because he’s here now,” said Mavs co-star Kyrie Irving, who played a prominent role in the franchise’s recruitment of Thompson, his 2011 draft classmate and former Team USA teammate. “He’s added a great value to our championship aspirations.”
Irving emphasized how Thompson’s title experience can benefit the Mavs, who advanced to the NBA Finals before losing to the Boston Celtics in five games last season. But the discussion of Thompson’s value — even at age 34 with two major injuries in his relatively recent medical history — begins with his historically elite 3-point shooting.
The Mavs prioritized adding a 3-point threat after struggling from long range in the Finals, when Dallas shot only 31.6% from 3-point range. Thompson is a career 41.3% 3-point shooter (38.7% on 9.0 attempts per game last season), who ranks sixth in NBA history with 2,481 3s made.
“When me and Kai, when we have the ball, you basically can’t help off of Klay,” Doncic said. “Because if you leave him wide open, he’s going to make it. So I think the spacing is going to be crucial for us, but more of that, I will tell you after a couple games.”
With Irving owning Thompson’s familiar No. 11 in Dallas, Thompson chose to wear No. 31 as a way to honor Reggie Miller when he passes him on the all-time 3s made list, as Thompson enters the season 80 3s shy of that distinction. It happens to also be the number worn by Jason Terry, who coach Jason Kidd mentioned as the last premier perimeter shooter the Mavs have employed.
“We’ve had shooters, but we haven’t had a Jason Terry or Klay Thompson,” said Kidd, who played alongside Terry in Dallas, including on the Mavs’ 2010-11 title team. “This is rare air. When you talk about Klay, he’s going to go down as one of the best shooters of all-time. So to have him on our side, it just makes the game offensively easier. Spacing is a big thing in our league.
“When you look at teams that can make the game easy — Boston, ourselves — those are the ones that can win championships.”
Thompson said he believes his game “compliments the roster very well” and that he provides the Mavs’ offense “a whole new dimension.” He acknowledged that he will have to make a significant adjustment to adapt to the Mavs’ style of play, which is drastically different than Golden State’s system.
“From an X’s and O’s standpoint, I’ll have to adjust to maybe playing off such good creators,” Thompson said. “In Golden State, it was very motion-based offense. But I mean, just being able to play with Luka the last few days, his ability in the pick-and-roll is maybe the best I’ve ever seen. It’ll be fun to play with him in those sets because he draws so much attention and he gets so many open looks for the perimeter. So I’ll be there to knock him down.
“I think it will take a couple weeks just to get used to this new system, but luckily opening night’s not until [Oct. 24]. So this preseason might be the most important one I’ve had in so many years, and I can’t wait to get going tomorrow and learn this system. But I do know I’m a hooper, so I can adjust accordingly and I look forward to doing that.”