D A L L A S   M A V E R I C K S
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Mavericks at a Glance Coach: Don Nelson Last Year: 57-25 (Stats) Key Additions: PF Popeye Jones Key Losses: SF Greg Buckner, C Wang Zhizhi Projected Starters PG Steve Nash SG Michael Finley SF Eduardo Najera PF Dirk Nowitzki C Raef LaFrentz Key Subs PG Nick Van Exel SF Adrian Griffin PF Popeye Jones C Shawn Bradley

By John Hollinger, CNNSI.com

The Mavericks were the league's most entertaining team last season. With Steve Nash providing a nonstop motor for the league's best offense, Dirk Nowitzki launching 3s at will and Michael Finley attacking the rim, the Mavs were a constant threat to bury their opponent with a 40-point quarter.

Unfortunately, there's a big difference between "entertaining" and "great." The Mavs allowed nearly as many points as they scored, thanks to a soft front line, and were unable to overcome that weakness when matched up against the top teams in the West.

This year, the Mavs are optimistic that last year's midseason acquisitions, Raef LaFrentz and Nick Van Exel, will jell with their new squad. However, Dallas' bench took a hit with the loss of Greg Buckner to the 76ers and Wang Zhizhi to Chinese politics. Don Nelson again will have the league's most fun team to watch, but the question in Dallas is whether that fun will extend into June.

Dirk Nowitzki, F -- There is little doubt that Nowitzki is the best shooting 7-footer to ever play the game, but what has been even more impressive is the year-to-year improvement he's shown. With every campaign, Nowitzki comes back a little stronger, with a more varied game and new skills. Check this out: In each of the past three years, Nowitzki has set new career highs in scoring, field goal percentage, free-throw percentage, 3-point percentage, rebounds, steals, field-goal attempts and free-throw attempts.

He boosted his game again in last year's playoffs, scoring 28.4 points a night, grabbing 13.1 rebounds and shooting 57 percent on 3-pointers, which offers a bad omen for Western Conference opponents. Nowitzki is still just 24, so the final product could be even better. Offensively, there are already few players who can match his skills; it's just a question of getting more shots for him. However, he does have one tragic weakness, which leads us to our next topic.

Defense -- Is it not bitterly ironic that this team plays in a city called "Big D"? The constant jokes about "Irk" Nowitzki and the "Allas" Mavericks last year were on target: The team as a whole was poor defensively, and Nowitzki, in particular, is a terrible defender for an NBA superstar.

Even the players with decent defensive stats are liabilities. Nowitzki puts up OK numbers in blocks and rebounds but doesn't move well laterally and isn't strong enough to stop people in the post. His frontcourt mate, Waif, er, Raef LaFrentz, was second in the NBA in blocked shots last season, but couldn't provide nearly enough resistance in the post or on the glass for the Mavericks to stop people. This became painfully evident during their playoff series against Sacramento, when the Kings got any shot they wanted -- and the rebound whenever they missed it.

Dallas hopes the offseason pick up of Popeye Jones can help solidify the frontcourt, but getting him may be like putting a Band-Aid on an ax wound.

Can Don Nelson get over the hump?

Nellie has taken a lot of teams this far with his unconventional ways. In Milwaukee, where he invented the "point forward" concept with Paul Pressey, his teams were an annual threat to win the Central Division. In Golden State, he played large chunks of games without a center and turned Manute Bol into a 3-point shooter, and had some 50-win seasons there, too. Now, in Dallas, he's having similar success.

However, none of those teams ever made it past that level. Nelson is still waiting for his first NBA Finals appearance as a coach, and has won only two conference finals games in 24 years -- Jim O'Brien did that in Boston in 15 months. There's a logic that says Nelson can surprise teams with his weird lineups and unconventional styles in the regular season, but when a team sees his club every day for two weeks straight, the novelty wears off. That may have been the case in the Sacramento series last year, where the first two games were evenly contested but the three that followed were all Kings.

In his defense, Nelson has never had the big-man talent to do anything other than play "smallball" and torment teams from the perimeter -- but on the other hand, he hasn't tried very hard to acquire that kind of big man, either.

Fun while it lasts

Fast Facts • Dallas was the league's only team to both score (105.2) and allow (101.1) over 100 points a game last year. • The Mavericks broke an NBA record by committing just 1009 turnovers last year, nearly one a game fewer than any other team.

The Mavs will be one of the league's better teams. Nowitzki may come back even better than last year, and a year of acclimation should help LaFrentz and Van Exel. However, it's still hard to get overly excited about this team as a title contender. The strengths and weaknesses from a year ago remain largely intact, but the bench is weaker and Sacramento got better.

Dallas' offense is so potent that if it can field a team that is even average on defense, it probably will win the championship. Unfortunately, there is nothing on the roster to make that proposition seem likely. Until the Mavs can answer the questions about their defense, there is a de facto cap on how far this team can go in the brutal Western Conference.