One of the biggest lessons we learned — or at least got a refresher on — last season, as the Dallas Mavericks surged to the Western Conference Finals, is that some players perform better based on the environment they’re in. This was especially true with Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans after coming to the Mavs in a trade deadline deal that sent Kristaps Porzingis to the Washington Wizards.
In Bertans’ specific case, he rediscovered his 3-point stroke after arriving in Dallas, and that could be a great sign heading into the 2022-23 season.
“[Bertans’] shooting ability, you don’t forget to shoot all of a sudden. You’re not an amazing career shooter and then all of a sudden you forget. So that let’s you know there’s something going on. It could be playing time, it could be injury, you just don’t know. But you’re confident that he can still shoot the ball,” said Mavs GM Nico Harrison on the Mavs Step Back Podcast after the trade happened.
“And we also know when you have an amazing point guard like Luka [Doncic], he finds open shooters. Then it’s just a matter of can you put the ball in the hole, and we knew [Bertans] could do that, so that gave us confidence in him.”
With that said, let's take a brief look back at Bertans' numbers from last year and what we should expect going forward.
2021-22 Season Review
Overall, Bertans averaged just 5.6 points in 14.4 minutes per game last year. Although those averages didn't fluctuate much after being traded to the Mavs, his 3-point shooting took a big jump. After shooting just 31.9 percent from deep in 34 games with the Wizards, Bertans shot 36.0 percent from deep in 22 games with the Mavs.
In the postseason, Bertans saw his minutes drop to 10.7 per game, but his 3-point efficiency grew to 37.3 percent. He appeared in all of the Mavs' 18 playoff games and had a couple of really nice individual performances, including a 15-point outing in Game 3 of the first round against the Utah Jazz while Luka Doncic was still out with a calf injury. He also had two double-digit scoring games in the Mavs' seven-game series win over the top-seeded Phoenix Suns in the second round.
2022-23 Season Preview
How much Bertans is used next season could be determined by how the Mavs plan to use new big-man addition Christian Wood.
Will Wood be starting at the four alongside JaVale McGee, or will he be coming off the bench as the backup center — as some have suggested — with Maxi Kleber as the backup power forward? If Dwight Powell remains on the roster, is it feasible to envision Bertans getting his minutes over the current longest-tenured Maverick?
As things currently stand, we expect Bertans to be used in a “break glass in case of emergency” type of role this season. There might be a stretch of games where he doesn’t play at all, and there will be others where he plays around 10-15 minutes per game with an occasional flamethrower performance.
Regardless of how much Bertans actually plays, the expectation is that his 3-point efficiency will remain where it was last season in the 36-37 percent range. With Bertans shooting 40 percent from deep for his entire career, one terrible shooting stint with Washington last season shouldn’t be held against him.
You can follow Dalton Trigg on Twitter at @dalton_trigg
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