The Dallas Mavericks are a championship contender in the 2022-23 NBA season and will be for as long as 23-year-old superstar Luka Doncic is a member of the franchise. That said, there are some questions beyond that this season. After making the Western Conference Finals last year, is a Mavs NBA Finals appearance on the horizon? Or, going further is a Mavs championship in the cards this season? Unfortunately for Mavs fans, several things are working against the team that will likely preclude them from making — let alone winning the 2023 NBA Finals. Here are three reasons the Mavs won't win the 2023 NBA championship.

3. Jason Kidd isn’t a championship-level coach yet

It doesn’t take a Jerry West-level basketball mind to see that most of the Mavs success these past few years is almost purely the result of Luka Doncic and his generational talent.

Last season, Doncic led all NBA players in postseason points per game, averaging 31.7, and that was despite the fact that he shot just 34.7 % from behind the arc in the playoffs. Plus, the Mavs beat a less talented and dysfunctional Utah Jazz in the first round and a banged-up and possibly even more dysfunctional Phoenix Suns franchise in the second round.

When the team got to the Western Conference Finals, on the doorstep of a Mavs championship, the team’s talent alone wasn’t enough to get them over the line against the deeper Golden State Warriors.

That’s when Doncic and the team needed a coach to do some creative game-planning to figure out how to counteract the Warriors shooting and rebounding superiority.

Jason Kidd has no answers.

And that’s the problem in the 2022-23 season. After one soda-spilling season with the Brooklyn Nets and four years and no playoff series wins with the Milwaukee Bucks, Kidd did have his best year in Dallas last season.

He won 52 games and two playoff series, and that is a huge accomplishment. Still, he’s not at the next level yet, and when the Mavs once again run into more experienced, successful head coaches like Steve Kerr, Tyronn Lue, or Monty Williams, the Mavs will have the second-best coach in the series.

2. The Mavs still don’t have a second star to compliment Luka Doncic

You have to go back to the 2004 Detroit Pistons and, before that, the 1979 Seattle Supersonics to find an NBA championship-winning team without at least two — if not three — superstars on the roster.

The Mavs absolutely have one in Luka Doncic, and he’s so good he probably counts as one and a half. However, despite trying a number of things this offseason, there still isn’t a 1B to Doncic’s 1A.

Trading for Christian Wood and signing JaVale McGee were good moves. They both bring much-needed inside help to Dallas, and the 27-year-old Wood probably hasn’t reached his ceiling on a bad Houston Rockets team.

Still, neither one of these players are complementary stars.

The closest player to a Robin to Doncic’s Batman last season was probably Jalen Brunson, and the Mavs lost him to the New York Knicks in free agency. There will be no Mavs championship until the franchise finds a true running-mate for Luka.

Ahead of the 2023 NBA Finals, there is still a chance to do this. But right now, it doesn’t look like it’s happening.

1. Luka Doncic has played too much basketball the last two years

Luka Doncic is the most exciting and entertaining player to watch in the NBA right now. The more he is healthy and playing well, the better it is for the NBA.

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The problem is that in the last two years — since the NBA returned to the Bubble in late July 2020 — Doncic has played an incredible amount of high-leverage minutes around the globe.

The Mavs superstar was 19th in the NBA in minutes per game in 2020-21 (34.3) and ninth (35.4) in 2021-22. He played a grueling six- and seven-game playoff series vs. the Los Angeles Clippers in 2020 and 2021 and played 15 postseason games in 2022.

In between, Doncic didn’t kick back and lay on a beach somewhere in Slovenia.

In the summer of 2021, he led his Slovenian National Team to the bronze medal game in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (played in the Summer of 2021), and in the 2022 offseason, he played seven games in FIBA EuroBasket with his home country.

There is now 82 regular season NBA games and, at a bare minimum, 16 playoff games between Luka Doncic and a Mavs championship in 2023.

Doncic is young and fit and, despite some nagging bumps and bruises, has been relatively healthy in his career. All this basketball will take its toll at some point, though, and it could hinder the Mavs NBA Finals chances this season.