Luka Doncic's concerning slump reveals Klay Thompson's crucial next step

The elephant in the room is now apparent.

After the Dallas Mavericks' loss to the Houston Rockets on Halloween night on their home floor, some questions arose regarding how the team has been starting out this season. Dallas is 3-2, but they have yet to play a full game of great basketball.

Houston is a young, rising team that deserves all the credit for the victory, but there are some concerns about Luka Doncic that can be solved with the help of a four-time NBA champion.

Klay Thompson is the key to help solve Luka Doncic's slow starts

This is the reason why Klay Thompson was brought in. He is an unworldly shooter, and he is someone who could help with the slow starts.

Thompson's next assignment needs to be to make up the slack of Doncic's poor shooting over the first five games.

Doncic started out shooting 5-13 from the field and 2-4 on free throws in the first half against Houston. He's actually shot 14-47 from deep in the first five games of the season. This is just around 30 percent, and his shooting in the first quarters of games has looked even worse.

Against Minnesota, Doncic hit a clutch shot to put his team on top. His performance throughout the game wasn't efficient, but Kyrie Irving stepped up and put the team on his back.

This will obviously not cut it if Doncic wants to go for an MVP, but this isn't necessarily panic time. Instead, it's time for Thompson to get more shots up.

Thompson just needs to do what Tim Hardaway Jr. always did. Just keep shooting.

Mavs fans were pumped to see Thompson's debut where he hit six threes in the game and had 22 points on the night. Since then, he hasn't gotten as many opportunities to do the magic he did since game one. Dallas must start getting him more involved early on in games, and this will only help Doncic get into a better rhythm early on.

Thompson was brought in to be the third man to Irving and Doncic. The Mavericks can't afford to make Thompson a sitting duck and allow Doncic to attempt too many missed shots at the beginning of games. He has to stop settling early on, and Thompson can be a great release valve from downtown for that.

Something that was concerning last season was that Doncic would go through a lot of wear and tear on his body when he would dribble the ball and move too much just to get off a low-percentage shot. Then, he would go back and have no juice to give on the defensive end.

Thompson needs to be given opportunities to get the ball from off-ball screens to shoot the ball from the perimeter to put less wear and tear on Doncic. Thompson isn't the only one that needs more opportunities, however. This was the sole reason why the Mavericks went out and got Spencer Dinwiddie and Quentin Grimes too.

The Mavericks need to utilize their pieces and start normalizing taking out Doncic if he's flustered in terms of shooting. There's a reason now he doesn't have to play the entire first and third quarters. Jason Kidd needs to see that too.

Getting Thompson involved early and often moving forward will help take the weight off Doncic's shoulders, and the Slovenian superstar needs to look for him more too.