Kristaps Porzingis hasn't played a meaningful game of basketball in a year-and-a-half, so with his regular-season debut with the Dallas Mavericks approaching, there is some obvious excitement brewing.
Of course, no one really knows what to expect from Porzingis, who has been recovering from a torn ACL. He has looked solid in preseason action, which probably means something, but we need to see him in a real competitive matchup before we make any real judgments.
What we do know is that Porzingis is one of the most talented big men in the game, and if he is healthy, he is going to be a problem for the rest of the NBA for years to come.
So, here are three numbers for the Unicorn to target in 2019-20:
3. 70 Games
Let's get the obvious out of the way first: Porzingis actually needs to stay on the floor.
In his first four seasons in the NBA, Porzingis has played in 72, 66, 48 and zero games, respectively. Even before the ACL injury in 2017-18, Porzingis had a lot of nagging injury issues which raised concerns about his durability.
So, the Mavericks would like to see that their max player can remain healthy.
Even 70 games might be pushing it, because Dallas will almost surely rest Porzingis throughout the season, but so long as he avoids any other injuries, 70 contests is a pretty realistic goal.
2. Nine Rebounds Per Game
Porzingis is 7-foot-3 and is an athletic freak, so he should be gobbling up rebounds like nobody's business.
But over the course of his young NBA tenure, the Latvian has averaged just 7.1 rebounds per game and owns a very pedestrian total rebound percentage of 12.5 percent.
I understand that Porzingis spends a lot of his time out on the perimeter offensively, but that does not excuse him from not crashing the glass on the defensive end.
Honestly, Porzingis should be a double-double threat every night, and while I actually think he should be averaging 10 boards per game, I won't go that far yet and will set his goal at nine.
His career high for rebounds in a single season is 7.3 per game, so even nine is a big jump, but given his size and athletic ability, there is no reason why he shouldn't be averaging at least that much.
1. Shoot 48 Percent from the Floor
I'm not even going to get into points per game when it comes to Porzingis, because he is just coming back from a major injury and hadn't played since February 2018 before his recent preseason action.
But I am going to focus on his efficiency.
Porzingis has made just 43.7 percent of his field-goal attempts thus far, which is inexcusable for an elite center, even if he is taking a lot of threes.
Shot selection was a rather big issue for Porzingis during his time with the New York Knicks, as he frequently settled instead of trying to take advantage of mismatches.
It's time Porzingis to start becoming more assertive and taking more high-percentage shots.
Asking a 7-foot-3 freak to shoot 48 percent from the floor is not asking too much.
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