Back at it again soon
With more than a week off from Dallas Mavericks basketball wrapping up soon, we turn our thoughts to the end of the regular season. The question was simple: how do you think the rest of the regular season shakes out for the Mavericks?
Tyler: I really respect the level of fight that the Mavs brought over the final five games before the break. However, those games are funky and a lot of times you can win if you simply aren’t already halfway to Cancun. After the break, I expect the fight to be there but I don’t think they’re talented enough, as they are currently, to get this thing over the finish line. They no longer have the ultimate trump card that they used to have with Luka Doncic. They’ve got no starting quality bigs for at least a month longer. The margin of error for this team has reached the point of “one of Kessler Edwards, O-Max Prosper or Brandon Williams has to have an outlier scoring night” in order to win. All that to say, I think for the second time in three years, the Dallas Mavericks will miss the playoffs entirely.
David: Call me a madman but this team has inspired me. I expect them to be competitive, regardless of who is on the floor. I like their resolve and conviction in their abilities more than some of the other teams around them fighting for playoff spots, so I think Dallas gets in. Whether that is eighth or seventh I don’t know, but I do think they make it to a playoff series. That series probably results in a Mavericks loss, but there is a world in which they get healthy by then. Then again, this season has about four standard deviations of variance due to their injury list and the uncertainty in the Western Conference, so they could very well have a lottery pick too. Either way, I hope the team continues to fight the way they have.
Michael: So much depends on the overall health of the team, which is not looking great right now, especially for the bigs. That said, anticipating a more imminent return of P.J. Washington, I do think the team can not only hang around, but also inch up in the standings. They are playing with a ton of heart and grit right now and that can’t be overlooked. They’re also actually pretty good even with the injuries. Washington should help bring another level of those key ingredients, plus another healthy starter in general. We also have to consider the fact nothing is in a vacuum. The standings are very tight, and any other team(s) that hits a bump could also help propel the Mavs. They just need to get to the Playoffs. If they do and it coincides with the return of AD, Lively and/or Gafford, they will be a tough matchup. So what do I think? Call me optimistic, but I think they make it (and not just as a Play-In) and both AD and Lively are involved in Playoff games.
Sudarshan: With a frontline so decimated by injury, the Mavericks rely solely on effort and shot variance to keep it all together. That’s not going to be sustainable over the next 26 games. This isn’t going to be like the Thunder, going super small with Chet and Hartenstein out. The Mavericks’ new identity post-Luka is playing big & physical, yet the current injury crisis will force them to play very differently.
I foresee a lot of close single-digit margin losses when the lack of available quality big men hurts the team and should lead to the team missing the playoffs entirely – a sad outcome for a front office hyping the worst trade in league history as a win-now move.
If it leads to Adam Silver gifting the franchise Cooper Flagg in the lottery, then I’m all for this.
Matt M.: Brace yourselves. Just like Mavs fandom deluded itself when the team won 60% of its games minus Luka Doncic before The Trade That Is And That Should Not Be, some of us are deluding ourselves once more, by letting the fact that Dallas fluked its way into four wins in five games going into the break mean anything at all. These last 26 games are going to be ugly, frustrating and the Mavs will eek out enough wins (11-15, maybe, something close to that) to make the last few fans who can still feel feelings wonder … “what if, though?” The Mavs will still be in contention … for the last spot in the play-in come the middle of April — a distinction void of all meaning, I assure you.
Ben: My prediction?
Matt: A team that requires 40+ minutes of Kyrie Irving every night is not setting itself up for success. It’s just not a sustainable blueprint. The way this group has played has been admirable, and winning 4 of 5 before the deadline was a nice salve, but we haven’t even begun to see what it looks like when the wheels truly fall off. A team can play without a center. I have a harder time believing a team can play with zero dribbling or shot creation.
Brent: The Dallas Mavericks have reached the NBA Finals three times in franchise history. The year after each appearance has led to a deep wound for the fanbase. In 2007, the determined Mavs reached new heights with a stellar regular season only to fall to Don Nelson and his “We Believe” Warriors. After the championship in 2011, the Maverick ownership and front office set their sights on a marquee free agent – which never materialized in the years that followed. To prep for the signing that never was, key veterans were allowed to float away over the next two years.
Last season, despite not winning the Finals, the Mavericks felt ascendant. Luka Doncic had led his revamped team to the Finals and improvements were made in the off-season. Finally, the franchise would get the post- Finals year right. And then Nico Harrison and Patrick Dumont pulled the most boneheaded maneuver in the history of professional sports.
Here the Dallas Mavericks sit. Reduced from Finals appearance to aspirational plucky upstart. It’s gross, it’s shameful, it’s morbidly hilarious and the franchise will need years – if not decades – to return to bonafide title contention. This season? You’ll hear announcers fawn over Max Christie (and rightly so) as they search for any possible silver linings.
How bad is this? Fans of other teams are often consoling Maverick fans rather than the usual roasting. The purest and perhaps last form of reliable empathy in this bleak timeline is a fan of some far off rival shuddering at the thought of their franchise being at the mercy of Nico Harrison and Patrick Dumont.
Kirk: Once the games turn on, I’m locked in. But in the moments around the games, this is hard to care. Dallas is in a No Man’s Land. They need to keep winning but how much winning can we expect with no functional bigs? I expect the games will be fun, so at least we have that going for us.