Many basketball experts have said that the Dallas Mavericks are going back to the traditional style of playing basketball by loading up on big men. Dallas already had Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford to man the slot position. But they added Anthony Davis from the Luka Doncic deal and are expected to field a double-big lineup.
But according to former majority owner Mark Cuban, just because the Mavs have three legit big men in their lineup and they are going to use a two-big unit, it doesn’t mean that they are deviating from the current norm of the analytics-driven 3-point revolution.
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“I don’t know about that,” said Cuban on the “DLLS Dallas Mavericks podcast” when asked if the Mavs plan to pound it down low with their bigs.”I literally think that our season will go as well as D-Live and AD shooting 3’s. Did you not watch the Finals? It never hit the rim…I’m just telling you. You heard it here first.”
Maybe AD but D-Live, seriously?
It won’t be surprising to see Davis jack up three-pointers, especially while playing the power forward position. AD has shot 1,296 3-pointers in his 13-year NBA career, averaging 132 attempts per 82-game season. That shot is not his biggest weapon, but it keeps his defenders on their toes as they have to close him beyond the arc.
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However, Lively has attempted just two 3-point attempts in his NBA regular-season career and missed both of them. But as Cuban said, he swished his only attempt from the rainbow area during the 2024 NBA Finals, which shows that he can make those shots while he doesn’t take them. Mark believes Lively will get the blessing from J-Kidd to shoot next season.
“I think he’s going to get the green light. Time will tell…D-Live! D-Live! D-Live! I’ve had a lot of conversations with Patrick about analytics,” he added.
The three-point revolution
Suppose it’s true that Mark has convinced the team governor and Miriam Adelson’s son-in-law, Patrick Dumont, to embrace analytics. In that case, Cuban may be serious about Lively taking 3-point shots on a regular basis next season. That’s because the current 3-point craze in the NBA is driven by analytics, which advocates all players, including bigs, taking 3-pointers over two-point shots.
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Dallas, with Luka, made the 2024 NBA Finals while shooting a lot of 3s, but without Doncic for half a season the last time out, the Mavs literally stopped shooting. Although injuries are really to blame, they missed the playoffs.
They went from being ranked second in the league in 3-point attempts (39.5 per game) and third in makes (14.6 per game) during the 2023-24 season to just 26th in both in 2024-25. Their 3-point shooting percentage also fell from 36.9 percent to just 34.2 percent during that span.
This isn’t saying that the only way for the Mavs to succeed is for their bigs to shoot 3s. But if they do not want to be left behind in the revolution, then Livley and Davis might have to shoot regularly from the rainbow area next season.
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This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Aug 28, 2025, where it first appeared in the Latest News section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.