the-four-horsemen

Bobby Karalla

His list of accomplishments is as impressive as his patented one-legged fade. He’s a perennial All-Star, a surefire Hall of Famer, and perhaps the best European basketball player of all-time. Normally after 17 seasons, you’d run out of things to say about someone. But, even after all this time, Dirk Nowitzki is still reinventing his game and playing at a high level.

OffRtg? NetRtg? eFG%? What does this all mean?!

What’s made Nowitzki’s rise as a superstar so unique is his willingness to tweak or add things to his game in order to improve on both an individual level and within the context of the team. In the mid-2000s, for example, then-Mavs coach Avery Johnson urged Nowitzki to add a post-up element to his game and eventually built the entire offense around the German’s new back-to-the-basket ability. In just one season, Nowitzki went from a spot-up shooter to the most unstoppable low-post presence in the league.

Rick Carlisle would replace Johnson after the 2007-08 season, and in the immediate future Nowitzki would take far fewer three-point attempts in favor of staying in the mid-range, playing off of Jason Kidd and in the famous two-man game with Jason Terry. And still, his post-up game remained. His evolution was complete during the 2010-11 season, when he blended interior dominance with perimeter sharpshooting. He shot a career-high 51.7 percent from the field in the regular season and scored an impressive 27.7 points per game in the postseason as Dallas won the championship.

In the past few seasons, as Carlisle has begun managing Nowitzki’s minutes to keep him fresh for the playoffs, his role in the offense has changed once again. Since the beginning of the 2012-13 season, Dirk’s usage rate has dropped to 25.5 percent from the 27.2 percent mark to that point in his career, according to Basketball-Reference. Usage rate is no indication of production or efficiency, but it estimates the percentage of team plays a player uses while he’s on the floor.

But no matter how he’s been used throughout his career, Nowitzki hasn’t failed to produce. Aside from his 13 All-Star appearances, Dirk has maintained a remarkable level of efficiency that not many players will ever touch, if any. Below is a list of the players with the most seasons with a true shooting percentage of at least 56.0 and 1,300 points. It excludes seasons when a player didn’t qualify among league leaders in three-point percentage. (This was done to eliminate centers, but even if we ran that, Nowitzki would have led with 15 such seasons.) As shooters go, Nowitzki is one of the best ever.

Knowing Nowitzki’s past as a player, including some of the tweaks he’s made to his game and the different ways coaches have deployed him, is very important for understanding what the Mavs might look to do on offense this season. Dirk will have plenty of new options to play off of this season, and while it’s unclear how many minutes he’ll play or just what kind of role he’ll have in the offense, it’s unlikely that his usage rate will climb from last season to this one.

In other words, the Mavs have found players who can help carry the offensive burden. That’s what makes Chandler Parsons such an appealing player at the small forward spot next to Nowitzki, as Parsons is capable of playing off of ball-handlers but also making plays himself. Deron Williams is perhaps the most scoring-minded point guard Nowitzki has played with in his career, and the German has had plenty of success teaming up with offensive combo guards like Jason Terry, Nick Van Exel, and Monta Ellis at various stages of his career. Wes Matthews will provide another post-up option for the Mavs at the shooting guard position, as well as excellent three-point shooting and terrific defense. Those three players alone are capable of scoring in the double-digits on a regular basis, and along with a bench full of shooters and some strong pick-and-roll centers, the Mavericks have more sources of offense on this roster than has been the case in some time.

But what might Nowitzki’s role look like this season? Where will he shoot from, and how will his skills be utilized? Those are questions for Carlisle to answer, but in general terms we can forecast that Nowitzki will be shooting plenty of jumpers this season. Basketball-Reference tracks shot distance for every player in the NBA, and according to their data Nowitzki’s average distance on field goal attempts last season was 16.9 feet, and it’s increased each season going back to 2009-10, when it was 13.7 feet.

As Nowitzki’s volume of post-up attempts has decreased, his spot-up duties have increased. Last season, for example, he was Ellis’ and J.J. Barea’s favorite kick-out option on drives to the rim. The 7-footer ranked third in the NBA last season in total points on catch-and-shoot jumpers, per SportVU, and he finished second in the same category the year before. He led the NBA last season in catch-and-shoot attempts per game at 7.6, accounting for more than half of his field goal attempts.

His shooting ability helps Dallas in so many ways. Dirk’s gravity effect is capable of completely dictating opposing defenses, and that’s why surrounding him with potent scoring threats is so intriguing. In addition to Nowitzki, Dallas has three starters who can beat their man one-on-one, and that’s not taking into consideration the centers, each of whom brings his own offensive talents to the table.

One thing is likely to remain true, no matter how the rotation shakes out: Dallas will run the pick-and-roll as much (or more) than any team in the league. That was the case last season, and the season before, per Synergy Sports. With Williams and Barea at the helm and a host of spot-up shooters to space the floor, it’d make sense for Dallas to continue that trend. However, Matthews’ post-up ability, as well as some possible contributions from JaVale McGee in the post, gives the Mavs that dimension for defenses to worry about.

The good thing for the latest iteration of Nowitzki — Dirk 4.0, if you will — is that he fits in no matter what Dallas does. His spot-up shooting is a dangerous weapon in any offensive system, and as he’s shown numerous times in recent seasons, he’s still capable of producing in the post himself if the Mavs need a bucket in the fourth quarter. That one-legged fade isn’t going anywhere. Any question regarding the Mavericks offense this season will have nothing to do with Nowitzki, because he’s been maybe the surest thing the league has ever seen.

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The Four Horsemen: Dirk Nowitzki

Last season, Chandler Parsons was the best pick-and-roll player on the Mavs and, by volume, the fifth-best in the NBA. He was spectacular in the role, generating points for himself at a very high rate. Parsons was so efficient, in fact, that he’s said he’d like a larger role in the offense this season — and should his knee cooperate, which at this point it seems like it will, Parsons has done enough to earn it.

Parsons has grown more efficient by the year in the pick-and-roll, scoring a career-high 0.951 points per possession as the ball-handler in that set.

And Rick Carlisle, who not only rides hot hands on the offensive side of the ball but also relies on the pick-and-roll in general, happily gave Parsons looks more frequently in the pick-and-roll than he’d gotten from Kevin McHale earlier in his career. According to Synergy Sports, 18.3 percent of Parsons’ possessions came as the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll, a career-high mark. He logged 2.79 pick-and-rolls per game, also a career-high.

What makes Parsons so effective in the pick-and-roll is his rare combination of height, speed, ball-handling, and finishing ability. At 6-foot-10 with the dexterity to finish around the rim with either hand, he’s a tough assignment for any wing. Playing next to Dirk Nowitzki was another big reason behind Parsons’ statistical surge last season, as defenses respect Nowitzki’s jump shot to such a high degree that it gives Parsons a slightly easier driving lane to the basket. But even if the defense honed in on Parsons, he’s got the foot speed to blow by bigger players and finish a contested bucket.

We saw this time and time again last season, and while it might look easy, it really isn’t. Parsons is knifing through traffic and finishing with his off-hand but it looks about as simple as Nowitzki’s patented one-legged fade. Lay-ups are only easy before the game starts, but when the whistle blows and you find yourself among the trees, suddenly the basket looks a little smaller. Parsons, however, was unfazed last season, and the Mavs will be counting on him to maintain that same level of efficiency this season.

It isn’t just Nowitzki, though, whose presence defenses will have to account for this season. Deron Williams and Wes Matthews, who figure to be the starting guards this season, are both excellent three-point shooters. Matthews, in particular, is about as reliable as it gets on catch-and-shoot opportunities, having hit more treys since 2009-10 than everyone in the league not named Kyle Korver or Stephen Curry. Last season’s backcourt of Monta Ellis and Rajon Rondo excelled at driving to the rim — Ellis in particular — but neither guard was an above-average three-point shooter. That’s changed this season, and so will the attention opponents pay the Mavs’ guards this season.

For example, in the gif above, C.J. Watson is responsible for guarding Rondo, who was at the elbow as Parsons drove. Rondo was getting in position for a potential rebound, which is what you like to see as the offense, but you’d want Deron Williams to be behind the arc there ready for a potential kick-out pass if Watson chose to slide down and help against Parsons. Watson, of course, is smarter than that, which means there would have been one less defender for Parsons to beat in the lane. Everything is easier for everyone when you have shooting all over the court in today’s NBA.

So we know Parsons can score it himself in the pick-and-roll, but you’ve got to be able to spread the ball around to others in order to keep defenses honest, no matter how much shooting you have. The good news is Parsons can pass the ball, too. Last season he passed to spot-up shooters out of the P&R 63 times, only turning it over twice. Overall, he turned it over 34 times in 277 (a turnover rate of 12.3 percent) total P&R possessions, including all passes, a very solid mark for a small forward. By comparison, LeBron James had a 12.2 turnover rate in similar situations.

This is where Williams and Matthews will help most. Of those 63 passes to shooters Parsons made last season, the Mavs hit just 19 of 61 shots from the field, good for 31.1 percent, averaging just 0.81 points per possession. Typically, spot-up shots out of a pick-and-roll are threes, and the Mavs’ starting backcourt last season struggled to hit those shots. But with the dead-eye shooting of Williams and Matthews, that number should experience a sharp increase this season. Below, see what Parsons’ numbers looked like with some good shooting in Houston — envisioning what he could do this season, with potentially better shooting than he had with the Rockets, is going to be fun. (“Derived offense” combines Parsons’ own shooting with all shots taken following a pass — whether it’s to a shooter, the roll man, or someone else.)

Let’s pretend the Mavs take the same exact number of shots — 61 — as they did last season, and they’re all three-pointers, but they make 24 shots (39.3 percent) instead of 19 (31.1). That would result in 15 extra points for the Mavs, which would have increased the shooters’ points per possession from 0.810 to 1.05. Similarly, it would have increased Parsons’ derived offense points per possession from 0.949 to 1.00, by far a career-high. Oh, yeah, and 15 extra points could have won an extra game or two last season.

That’s what happens when you combine solid playmaking with great shooting: Points come in bunches and bunches. And if Parsons’ responsibilities really do increase this campaign the way he wants them to — and if he maintains the same level of individual efficiency he had last season — he could very well become one of the most prolific facilitators in the league, regardless of position. Parsons’ success is tied to the production of his teammates perhaps more so than both Williams’ and Matthews’. But, just as Parsons’ ease of looks depend on their shooting, their openness will depend on Parsons’ finishing ability. That symbiotic relationship could be the driving force behind the Mavs’ offense this season.

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The Four Horsemen: Chandler Parsons

The first thing you should know about Wes Matthews is that he prefers neither Wes nor Wesley. Call him what you want; he doesn’t care — and that’s straight from the source himself. That’s probably fitting, too, as it seems winning occupies the top-10 spots on his list of priorities.

The second thing you should know about Wes Matthews is that he can shoot the lights out, and in today’s league that’s going to help you win. The top-eight teams in the NBA last season in three-pointers made each qualified for the playoffs, so quantity matters, and that’s exactly what the Mavs’ new 2-guard will provide. Matthews has hit more threes than anyone in the NBA aside from Stephen Curry and Kyle Korver since entering the league in 2009-10.

But if half of basketball is production, the other half is consistency, and Matthews is as consistent as anyone, too. He’s hit at least 150 treys in four of the last five seasons dating back to 2010-11. Meanwhile, only four Mavericks have hit at least 150 in a campaign since the end of the 2006-07 season, and only 10 Mavericks have ever reached that mark. Curry is the only other player who has as many 150-threes seasons since 2010-11.

And since 2010-11, Matthews has averaged 2.3 made three-pointers per game. That ranks among the most prolific shooters in the NBA. Just five other players have done the same.

Dallas has had plenty of excellent long-range launchers — including Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, and Jason Kidd, the latter two of whom are in the top-five on the NBA’s all-time three-pointers made list. Even former Mavs Vince Carter and Peja Stojakovic are in the top-10 list, too. But Matthews might just be the most prolific of them all. His average of 2.3 threes made in the last five seasons matches Terry’s single-season career-high, according to Basketball-Reference. Meanwhile, Nowitzki has never averaged more than 1.9 made treys.

Matthews’ rare combination of production and efficiency — he’s one of just 11 players ever to maintain career averages of 14 points per game, 39 percent shooting on 3s, and a true shooting percentage of 57 or better — makes him a unique shooting guard in Mavs history. Terry and Michael Finley are the two most productive shooting guards to play alongside Nowitzki, and Rolando Blackman scored more points than any Mavs not named Dirk. But Matthews is a pure shooter with size, standing 6-foot-5. He’s Jason Terry in Michael Finley’s body, making him a very dangerous offensive player.

If the three-point shooting isn’t enough, he can also score in the post more efficiently than just about every other guard in the NBA, and it’s that element of his game which potentially sets him apart from guards of Mavs past (and of the NBA’s present). Longtime Mavs fans will remember Finley and Jerry Stackhouse posting up in the mid-’00s, but otherwise Dallas shooting guards have rarely ventured anywhere near the low block. However, the advantages of doing so, especially when playing beside sharpshooters like Parsons and Nowitzki, are bountiful.

But first, here’s a look at just how efficient he was last season. Of all guards in the NBA who received at least 100 post-up looks, Matthews averaged more points per possession than every single one of them, and it really wasn’t very close.

This is where the apparently fuzzy math of points per possession becomes a bit more clear. At 0.992 points per possession, Matthews averaged just 0.103 points/possession more than Dwyane Wade. That might not seem like a lot, but look at it in terms of points. Matthews scored 125 points last season on 126 post-ups. In his opportunities, Wade scored 67 more points, but it took him 90 more tries. If Matthews had the same number of chances as Wade (and scored at the same clip) he would have created 214 points, or 22 more than Wade’s 192. And if you want to get even more technical, Dallas could use those 90 extra possessions to run other actions — say, three-pointers. All it would take to make up those 67 points is hitting 23-of-90 from beyond the arc (just 25.6 percent). One-tenth of a point per possession might not seem like much, but across a season it makes a huge, huge difference.

Matthews combines his own ability on the outside and on the block with a good nose for making the right pass. Last season, Portland’s main stable of shooters (Damian Lillard, LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum, and Steve Blake) shot 48-of-121 on three-point attempts off of Matthews’ passes, good for a blistering 39.7 percent, per SportVU. This indicates Matthews is able to swing the ball while on the outside to find the right guy, and also that he’s able to pick out the right spot-up target when he’s posting up. Like Aldridge, Dirk Nowitzki is a power forward who can catch and shoot from the perimeter.

By placing Matthews on the block and Nowitzki on the outside, Dallas can “invert” its offense and take advantage of the resulting mismatches. Not all power forwards are used to defending on the edge, just like not all shooting guards are used to defending in the post. Matthews’ greatest strength, fortunately for him, aligns with his opponents’ major area of weakness.

It’s not just Nowitzki who will benefit from Matthews’ interior presence, though. Parsons and Deron Williams are both excellent three-point shooters themselves, so their defenders can’t afford to sink off the shooters to offer help defense on Matthews if he has a size advantage on the block. By loading up on the perimeter with shooting, the Mavs are going to force defenses to maintain their discipline this season, otherwise they risk getting burned by multiple threats.

While a big-body shooting guard who can both shoot and post up might seem like a rarity in Mavs history, mixing in terrific defense makes Matthews even more one-of-a-kind. Dallas has had plenty of quality defenders at the 2-guard spot over the years — from Adrian Griffin to DeShawn Stevenson — but none have been able to combine that with offensive explosiveness.

Basketball analytics have illuminated so much we’d never really known about offense, but defensive data is still coming along. That said, the Mavericks do stress two things on the defensive end: Stay in front of your man, and force turnovers when possible. There’s no question Matthews can stay in front of his man, but he can swipe the ball as well. He’s one of 59 active NBA players to average at least 1.1 steals per game going back to the 2009-10 season, and he’s joined on the list by Chandler Parsons. If that perimeter duo can combine with Deron Williams to force at or near three steals per game this season, added to the contributions of charge-drawing savants Devin Harris and J.J. Barea, the Mavs perimeter defense should improve from last year to this one.

Efficiency matters as well, of course, and luckily there is publicly available SportVU data that measures a player’s defensive prowess as it relates to field goal percentage (DFG%). Last season, Matthews allowed opponents to shoot 40.5 percent on all field goal attempts, 3.2 points better than the league average. That mark would have tied with Harris for best on the team. It becomes all the more impressive when you consider Matthews was frequently defending the opponent’s best perimeter scoring threat.

While there are no numbers that could show Matthews (or anyone else) is a shutdown defender, combining field goal percentage allowed data with things like game tape and reputation across the league will give you a better idea of who’s a great defender and who isn’t. And, by all accounts, Matthews is a great defender, and that’s great news for the Mavs.

When it comes to Mavs history, Matthews truly is a unique guy. He has great size for his position, he can shoot the ball like crazy, he can operate in the low post, and he can defend as well as anyone. In combination with Williams and Parsons, Matthews’ abilities figure to stand out even more than they did last season in Portland, when he became one of the more highly regarded shooting guards in basketball.

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The Four Horsemen: Wes Matthews

It says a lot that one of the things Deron Williams is looking forward to most about his time in Dallas is the franchise’s stability. Since the 2008-09 season, the Mavs organization has revolved around the core of star player Dirk Nowitzki, head coach Rick Carlisle, general manager Donnie Nelson, and proprietor Mark Cuban. Carlisle, the newest of the bunch, is one of just three coaches who has been with the same team since the beginning of the 2010-11 season. There is certainly plenty of tenure in Dallas.

That has to be appealing for someone like Williams, who played for four different coaches between 2011 and 2015 in Brooklyn: Avery Johnson, P.J. Carlesimo, Jason Kidd, and most recently Lionel Hollins. A point guard is the closest thing in basketball to an NFL quarterback, whose success in football is dependent not only on his own ability, but also the continuity of the program. Constantly adjusting to new systems year after year in either sport can stunt a young player’s development or, in the veteran Williams’ case, could potentially result in a drop-off in stats. Last season he shot a career-low 38.7 percent from the field with a 50.4 true shooting percentage.

But that isn’t the case in Dallas, where the Mavs have run a pick-and-roll offense centered around Nowitzki and a bevy of guards for many years now, and the results have clearly been positive for nearly every player in that position. However, after starting four different point guards in each of the last four seasons (with cameos by Mike James and Jameer Nelson), the Mavs must be excited about the possibility of having Williams act as a mainstay at the point guard spot moving forward. Plugging him into the pick-and-roll, a system in which he thrived in Utah during the first half of his career, could very well lead to a dramatic boost in Williams’ numbers.

In fact, regardless of system, point guards have nearly always played well next to Nowitzki. Below is a chart showing the shooting percentages of 12 of the 17 starting point guards the German has played with who posted at least a 57.0 true shooting percentage, sorted by TS%. (All numbers from Basketball-Reference.com.)

In the same way Carlisle’s offense made Dallas paradise for starting point guards, so too did Don Nelson’s offense, which featured four times a point guard with a true shooting percentage higher than 60.0. This isn’t a guarantee that Williams will put up monster numbers this season, but there’s more than a decade’s worth of evidence that he will fit just fine in Carlisle’s offense. What’s most intriguing is that the name at the top of that list, Jason Terry, was also the last starting point guard for the Mavericks who could consistently create his own offense. Devin Harris was able to do the same thing in the 2007-08 season but was eventually traded for Jason Kidd. Kidd and Jose Calderon were both excellent players (Kidd, obviously, is a future Hall of Famer) but there’s some added value in players like Williams and Terry who, if the play breaks down, can still generate a good shot.

In that regard, what makes this a new case is the fact that the Mavs didn’t necessarily sign Williams strictly to play next to Nowitzki. Primarily, they seized the opportunity to sign him because he’s a good player. Secondary is his fit within the pick-and-roll offense. Third, however, is his ability to run the offense but also to carry some of the offensive load himself.

Earlier this summer, Dallas had an entire roster assembled but with no starting point guard to orchestrate the offense. J.J. Barea and Raymond Felton both made positive impacts off the bench last season, and Devin Harris played shooting guard a majority of the time, but there was a need for a starting-caliber point who could score. Chandler Parsons will have the ball in his hands plenty this season, but it’s still an obvious plus to have another player on the roster who can make things happen. And because both players can facilitate and score, it makes defending them that much more difficult. Both players can also catch and shoot from behind the arc. They fit very well together.

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That’s a huge positive for the Mavericks for several reasons. With Williams and Parsons both in the mix, Carlisle has the option to keep at least one of them on the floor at all times, giving Dallas a reliable, proven playmaker to manage the flow of the game. Barea can also be counted on to control the tempo and has the chance to continue his role as a terrific change-of-pace option off the bench. But the other benefit has to do with Parsons’ health status. The forward maintains that he’ll be ready to go by the time the season starts, but if there’s a setback in his recovery process, the Mavs know they’ll still have a capable ball-handler to run the offense. Dallas will not be relying too much on one player this season, and that could make everyone’s job easier.

And because there are so many threats in the starting lineup — Williams, Nowitzki, Parsons, and Wes Matthews — all of the Mavericks’ primary scorers should have some extra room to operate. Unlike on a more traditional team featuring one or two “go-to” guys, multi-dimensional offensive players who can create their own offense, Dallas now has four of them. It will now be more difficult for defenses to focus in on any single player, let alone double-team him. Dirk, for example, faced many doubles last season, particularly in the low post along the baseline. But good luck doing that with players like Williams, Matthews, and Parsons spotting up around the perimeter.

That should especially benefit Williams, who has spent the last four-plus seasons in a system which struggled to create space for its players. Going back to the 2010-11 season, when the Nets traded for Williams, the club has only shot better than 35.0 percent on 3s as a team twice. The Mavs, meanwhile, have shot below 35.0 percent from deep just twice this millennium. That will make Williams, who has shot 37.2 percent from deep across the last three seasons, that much more dangerous in Dallas’ wide-open offense.

To better illustrate this, here’s an example of Brooklyn’s pick-and-roll offense from last season. Thaddeus Young is a fine shooter as a power forward, but the Nets ran a lot of 3-out, 2-in offense last season, as opposed to the 4-out system Dallas has run for Nowitzki’s entire career. By that, I mean their two big men play inside the arc, closer to the basket. While that style of play certainly has its merits, it occasionally results in a crowded lane on drives to the rim.

More bodies closer to the basket played a role in Williams’ field goal percentage dropping to 45.7 percent from within three feet last season, according to Basketball-Reference. But that doesn’t mean Williams simply can’t finish: He shot 64.6 percent inside of three feet in 2013-14, playing in what eventually became Jason Kidd’s wide-open four-out system, featuring Paul Pierce at the power forward spot. That system resulted in floor spacing like this.

Pierce, the power forward, can shoot well enough to keep his defender, Josh McRoberts, from sinking down far enough to help against Williams’ drive. This is the way many teams in the league, including and especially the Mavs, space the floor in today’s game, and an open lane should making finishing at the rim a whole lot easier for the new Mavs point guard.

On the other side of the ball, Williams gives the Mavs an element the club has missed for a few seasons. At 6-foot-3, 200 pounds, Williams has good size for a point guard and the strength to potentially defend “up” a position at shooting guard. That could come in handy, as Carlisle frequently plays multiple point guards at the same time. Last season, Rajon Rondo had the length to defend either guard spot, but not since Kidd played the 1 have the Mavs had a starting point guard who could combine excellent offensive ability with defensive versatility.

Hopefully both Williams and the Mavs can find the stability they’re looking for, because on paper this looks like it has the potential to be a pretty special union.

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The Four Horsemen: Dirk Nowitzki

The Four Horsemen: Chandler Parsons

The Four Horsemen: Wes Matthews

The Four Horsemen: Deron Williams