Who are the real Mavs? The team GMs pick to finish 9th; or ‘Built for deep playoff run’?

Training camp is over. The season begins Wednesday at San Antonio, but it seems we’re no closer to knowing exactly who the Mavericks are than when camp began 25 days ago.

Much like the Mavericks’ globetrotting preseason, which included games in Abu Dhabi and Madrid, experts’ projections for how Dallas will fare this season are all over the map.

In the annual NBA.com survey, league general managers forecasted the Mavericks to finished ninth in the West, but TNT analyst Reggie Miller said Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving make Dallas the team he most wants to watch and Shaquille O’Neal picked the Mavericks to win the title.

Detroit coach Monty Williams, whose team lost Friday night to Dallas in both teams’ preseason finale, made it clear that he, too, is bullish on the Mavericks.

“Their team is built to make a deep run,” he said. “That’s how I see it.”

After his team’s light-contact practice on Saturday, Mavericks coach Jason Kidd smiled – wistfully, it appeared — when told of the lofty projections.

“OK, I like that,” he said. “Two knowledgeable ex-players, and they’re doing quite well commentating in the media, so I’ll rock with those. And Monty.”

Kidd’s mood perhaps was brightened by a pair of injury updates: The Mavericks are not scheduled to practice on Sunday, but Kidd said the hope is that Doncic (left calf strain) and Jaden Hardy (ankle sprain) are nearing returns to practice, perhaps as soon as Monday.

In four preseason games, in which Dallas went 1-3, co-stars Doncic and Irving played together for only 6:51 – and that was way back on Oct. 5, in the opener in Abu Dhabi.

That probably helps explain the wide disparity of opinion about the Mavericks. Another factor, certainly, is the abundance of talented teams in the West.

The same NBA.com survey that projected Dallas to finish ninth in the conference, 10% of the general managers voted Dallas as the league’s most improved and 14% voted for Grant Williams as the most underrated player acquisition.

Oddsmakers have given Dallas the 11th-best odds of winning the NBA title and FanDuel’s Sportsbook lists the Mavericks’ over-under for victories at 43.5.

In reality, consulting a Ouija board might be just as reliable in guessing how Dallas will finish, but Detroit’s Williams specified what he likes about that Mavericks’ roster construction. He knows a thing or two about what a West contender looks like, having coached Phoenix from 2019 to 2023, including an upset loss to Dallas in the 2022 conference semifinals.

“They’ve got two guys that can win games every night,” he said of Doncic and Irving. “Two guys that have won playoff games.

“But they’ve [also] added some toughness. When they lost [Dorian] Finney-Smith, I thought that was a tough blow for them. And now they’ve added Grant, a tough guy that can also shoot the ball. He’s got playoff tread marks all over his body.”

Monty Williams called Hardy a driven young talent to yearns to score, and he’s impressed with 19-year-old rookie center Dereck Lively II, who on Friday finished with 14 points and five rebounds in 24 minutes.

“That tandem in pick and roll is going to cause the West some problems,” he said of the Doncic-Irving-Lively dynamic.

“They just seem to continue to build around Luka and now Kyrie. I always crack up when people disrespect great players. . . They put out those silly rankings and I just kind of laughed at that. I said, ‘They’re gonna start that dude up, man. He’s gonna tear some people up this year to prove them wrong.”

Williams seemed to be alluding to ESPN’s ranking of Irving as the NBA’s 34th-best player, though The Ringer ranked Irving No. 38 and CBSsports.com tabbed him 35th.

Irving, 31, returned from a two-game injury absence (sore left groin) on Friday night by torching Detroit with 17 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds in 27 minutes.

After his ESPN ranking came out, Irving posted on Instagram: “Who. TF. cares. I Never will. Rankings don’t mean a damn thing in the league, especially not from ESPN or any of these other media platforms. Majority of the analysts are not credible sources in my eyes and I don’t respect them or their opinions.”

On Friday night, after being told of Williams’ comments, Irving smiled and clarified his Instagram post.

“As a player that’s been in this league for a while, I haven’t always dealt with the criticism in the best way and I’m not afraid to speak my voice,” he said.

“And I think at that moment, when I saw those rankings, I was more or less saying to my peers and the young guys: ‘This list doesn’t mean anything. We’re here to win basketball games. That’s going to be the true success and true rankings at the end of the season.’ That’s where our focus should be.”

The same perhaps can be said of preseason team projections. The experts who don’t view the Mavericks, as constructed, to a top eight team in the West; and even Shaq, if in fact he was serious in picking Dallas to win it all.

Roster filled: On Saturday, the Mavericks announced that an Aggie and a Longhorn have had their training camp deals converted to two-way contracts.

They are Dexter Dennis, a 6-5 guard who last season played at Texas A&M as a graduate transfer; and forward Greg Brown III, who spent one season at Texas and was on the Big 12 All-Freshman team in 2021.

Dallas already was carrying the maximum 15 full NBA contracts. With Dennis and Brown in the fold, the Mavericks also have the maximum three players under two-way contracts.

Rosters must the finalized and submitted to the NBA by Monday afternoon.

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