Mavericks: Nicolo Melli could be Dallas’ secret weapon in the playoffs

Nicolo Melli could prove to be an important shooter for the Dallas Mavericks

It’s been a little redundant to talk about the Mavericks shooting this season. After starting at the worst rate in the league, Dallas has progressed to the mean and stagnated as one of the average shooting teams. Adding two shooters in Reddick and Melli should help boost those numbers for the playoffs.

Thus far in his young NBA career, Melli has been an inconsistent shooter at best. After slashing a middling 34 percent from deep in a bench role with the Pelicans last season, Melli has regressed this season to an ugly 23 percent.

There is good news, however. Since arriving in Dallas, Melli has started to find his rhythm, hitting 32 percent of his 19 attempts so far in a Mavericks uniform. If his outlier 0-5 from deep performance against the Utah Jazz is removed from the equation, he’s hit 43 percent of his three balls.

Despite some decent performances in big wins, Melli has yet to carve out a role in the Mavs rotation. He showed promise filling frontcourt minutes when Kristaps Porzingis was out, but lately has registered some consecutive DNP-CD’s after being relegated to the end of coach Rick Carlisle’s bench.

In the nine games that Melli has appeared in thus far, he’s already taken 19 3-point attempts in just over 153 minutes played. Even if Melli doesn’t crack Carlisle’s regular rotation this season, knowing that the Mavericks have acquired another big body who can stretch the floor and is ready to shoot at any moment is an upgrade.

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