Some Dallas Mavericks fans aren’t even thinking about winning games in 2017-2018. Getting to watch another year of Dirk Nowitzki and seeing how rookie Dennis Smith, Jr. will follow up his Summer League performance will be enough to make the season entertaining enough. Wins are secondary as this team is clearly in a rebuilding stage at a time when the league is poised to be dominated by the Golden State Warriors and other super-talented teams.
Other fans, and probably all within the organization, don’t want to endure to anything like that again and want to give Nowitzki the best final year(s?) possible. With the Mavericks essentially doing nothing in free agency and via trade this summer, no offense to the oft-injured Josh McRoberts and that likely Texas Legend from Dirk’s hometown whose name most of us have already forgotten, it’s easy to assume they’re not going to go anywhere but down in the standings after a lot of the West got stronger.
Paul George joining league MVP Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City, Chris Paul joining the team just down I-45, Paul Millsap signing with the up and coming Denver Nuggets and the flurry of moves made by the Minnesota Timberwolves might make many think the Mavericks are destined to flirt with the bottom of the Western Conference standings during this upcoming season.
Not so fast.
While several teams have made major moves towards the top of the Western Conference standings this summer, there are a few teams that have been quiet like the Mavs and also lost some players that might bring them down a few pegs as well.
The Jazz, who finished in a tie for 4th in the West last season, lost franchise player Gordon Hayward when he signed with the Boston Celtics earlier this month. The team they tied for 4th with, the Los Angeles Clippers, lost legendary point guard Chris Paul when he more-or-less demanded a trade to the Houston Rockets.
The Memphis Grizzlies, who only finished 43-39 last season, lost key members like Zach Randolph and Vince Carter. Add this to the fact they still have to deal with Chandler Parsons taking up 25% of their cap for a couple more years. Hurts to miss that one.
The Portland Trail Blazers, who finished 8th in the West last season, committed too much money to third-tier young talent in the last couple of years and now find themselves unlikely to easily add any other major talented pieces as they appear poised to dip into the luxury tax as a fringe playoff team. Damian Lillard, C.J. McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic is a heck of a young trio to build around, but the money committed to the likes of Allen Crabbe and Evan Turner was a severe lack in judgment.
There's a new feud in the NBA: Dennis Smith Jr. vs the rim #SCtop10 pic.twitter.com/urwjPHPWR6
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) July 17, 2017
What about the Mavericks? They essentially haven’t lost anyone. They’re waiting out the Nerlens Noel restricted free angency saga, but they’ve added what could end up being the best value pick in the draft lottery in Dennis Smith, Jr. The point guard has already shown off a lot of flash and potential in the Las Vegas Summer League and has fans all around the country salivating to see what he can do.
It’s important to remember that the still-important Dirk Nowitzki played in only 9 of the team’s first 34 games during the 2016-2017 season. In that time, the team went 10-24. Pretty hard to battle your way out of that. Once the calendar flipped over to 2017, the Big German was mostly healthy and Seth Curry found his groove into the starting lineup. In a 31 game stretch from January 1st through March 11th, the Mavericks went 18-13, including 9-6 against teams that made the playoffs.
The 2016-2017 Mavericks season can be divided into three parts: the dreadful, injury-plagued first part from opening night through January 1st, the mostly healthy part with the emergence of Yogi Ferrell and Seth Curry, and the final month or so when they were admittedly tanking. The 18-13 mark falls under when they were healthy and still putting out the best lineup possible each night.
An 18-13 record equals winning at a 58% clip and if they could spread that over an 82 game stretch, that’d be a 48 win season and 9 years out of 10, that is enough to guarantee a playoff birth.
The Mavs have maintained their focus on the youth of their roster through their inactivity this summer. Winning more games this year can only be good for this club because players 25 and under will have to be huge contributors for that to happen.
Do yourself a favor, MFFL. Don’t be simplistic and root for more tanking. Trying to win is going to be the greatest accelerator for getting this organization back to the annual contender status it had for the entire first decade of this century.
Their path back into the Western Conference playoff picture isn’t nearly as long and difficult as it might appear on the surface.
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