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2020 - 2021 Dallas Mavericks: That motherfu*ker in Dallas is coming


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Trade looks good now as both players are solid 2/3 guys averaging 37/12/4 and our picks are poised to both be low first rounders where you’re generally not gonna get anyone of either player’s caliber. If we can get 5 years of 20/10 ball from KP, we smoked their ass. 
I wonder if we didn't make the trade if we could've signed kp that summer.
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7 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Trade looks good now as both players are solid 2/3 guys averaging 37/12/4 and our picks are poised to both be low first rounders where you’re generally not gonna get anyone of either player’s caliber. If we can get 5 years of 20/10 ball from KP, we smoked their ass. 

And most importantly, we got rid of Wesley Matthews Jr

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Re Friday crowd/energy… 830 tip, Friday night, holiday weekend, start of summer, first sporting event of consequence in the area in 18 mos(?) - holy hell it’s gonna explode if the mavs come out strong.
I might explode
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1 hour ago, gsoda3 said:
1 hour ago, Dr. Beeper said:
Trade looks good now as both players are solid 2/3 guys averaging 37/12/4 and our picks are poised to both be low first rounders where you’re generally not gonna get anyone of either player’s caliber. If we can get 5 years of 20/10 ball from KP, we smoked their ass. 

I wonder if we didn't make the trade if we could've signed kp that summer.

He wasn't expiring was he? Had another year. 

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Holy shit... this team might fuck some shit up in the West.

Luka’s scary good, but needs to get to the line more if NBA refs can give him the benefit of the doubt like other superstar players (and make more than 30% of his FTs).

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10 hours ago, gsoda3 said:
10 hours ago, Dr. Beeper said:
What was the trade?  DSJ and what for KP and THJ?
I know he’s streaky, but I love THJ and always have. The JET comparison is apt, but THJ is more athletic. 

DeAndre, Wes Matthews, this year's first and 2023's first.

Omg the maca just shell out first round picks like they don’t want them. My gosh. 

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Woke up still so hyped about last night, what a fun game. Now just reading everything I can get my hands on, here is Cato from the Athletic for those who don't have a sub to the Athletic: 

Spoiler

The Mavericks are up 2-0 on the Clippers — not specifically because of luck, or their red-hot shooting, or their opponent’s mental fragility, but because they’re the better team. If you ask me which team is “better” in the grand, universal sense, sure, who knows? L.A. won five more regular-season games and had the league’s second-best net rating. But watching the Mavericks’ Game 2 127-121 win on Tuesday, days after seeing them beat the Clippers even more soundly in Game 1, leads to a pretty simple thought process: Oh, look at the team that convincingly beat the other team twice. They’re probably better than them. Whether Dallas will continue being this better team is another question. But for whatever questions still exist in this series, sustainability isn’t one of them.

We’ve seen the Mavericks beat teams with better records than them all season — albeit while losing too often to bad ones — ever since the team finally reached something close to full health in mid-February, Dallas has won nine of its 12 games against opponents with a top-10 net rating in the league. Sure, that includes the Lakers without LeBron James and the Nets without James Harden, but all told, it’s a stretch of dominating the best opponents they’ve faced. Included are the team’s two mid-March games against the Clippers, the first one a defeat but the second one a convincing 16-win point win. It’s that game that laid out the blueprint to beat L.A., one that both playoff wins have followed.

Consider exactly what happened in the Mavericks’ 105-89 win against the Clippers on March 17:

  • Luka Doncic had 42 points and nine assists while playing 43 minutes.
  • Dallas nailed 15 of its 34 attempts from 3.
  • Tim Hardaway Jr. hadn’t taken Josh Richardson’s place in the starting lineup yet, but he started this game due to Dorian Finney-Smith’s absence along with Richardson and Maxi Kleber. They combine for 51 points.
  • Kawhi Leonard and Paul George had good-not-great performances, combining for 49 points on 41 shots.
  • Porzingis wasn’t spectacular, and he didn’t need to be, but he played solid defense that formed the core of an impressive team-wide defensive outing.

Or, to simplify this even further:

  • Doncic was otherworldly.
  • Dallas shot the lights out on 3s.
  • Enough of the Mavericks’ role players showed up.
  • Enough of the Clippers’ didn’t.
  • Porzingis doesn’t hurt a good team defensive showing.

This has been the exact formula that has them up 2-0 in this first-round series. Doncic is averaging 35 points and nine assists in his opening two games, with the Clippers seemingly having no defensive solution for him. Dallas has nailed exactly 50 percent of its triples thus far, something that must cool off a bit but perhaps not as much as you expect. The Dallas role players have been good. Not at once, mind you; Kleber struggled a bit in Game 1, while Finney-Smith only scored three points in Tuesday’s matchup. But they don’t all need to be their best selves every game if enough of them are on. And while Leonard and George have combined to average 59 points through this series’ first two games, it doesn’t matter. This is about as good as the Mavericks have looked defensively all season, and it’s making L.A. too star-centric to survive.

This successful formula has more than a three-game sample size. When Dallas succeeded against the league’s best teams, the roadmap to victory often looked similar. While the Mavericks have been plagued with inconsistency throughout the year, they did finish the season 33-16 with the league’s sixth-best net rating. Now up 2-0 against L.A., there’s really no reason to expect it to stop working now.

Consider everything that you think might be luck or, perhaps, deserved-but-unsustainable success. When Doncic hits this falling, fading 3-point shot off one foot despite a defender practically cuddling him mid-air, it sure feels like the universe is putting in extra hours behind the scenes to help him succeed.

But Doncic has always felt like this. He also shoots absurd shots like this one every day, every practice and, truthfully, every game. As J.J. Redick jokingly said on his podcast recently, “He’s taking, like, 800 of these stupid shots every season, so yeah, I’d hope he makes five of them.” Redick was talking about the post-practice circus looks, but he’s right that Doncic’s ability matches his proliferation.

That a 22-year-old, prodigious though he may be, can hit such shots in his eighth-ever postseason game while carrying his team to a win feels much wilder to me. But that crucial step in the winning formula shows no signs of slowing down, either. Doncic is averaging 32 points in those eight postseason games while scoring at least 28 points in three-quarters of them. He has been more efficient in the postseason than the regular season. He had one true clunker in last year’s six-game defeat, a 13-point outing on 4-of-14 shooting when Ivica Zubac was particularly troubling to him on switches. Doncic has demolished Zubac this series with mid-range counters and an improved 3-pointer. It feels like the Clippers couldn’t prevent Doncic from scoring 30 points even if they tripled-teamed him.

The Mavericks’ overall team shooting has to fall off to some extent, sure, since no team can sustain 50 percent forever. But which players cool off? We just talked about Doncic; his long-range attempts will continue to get launched regardless, and some will keep going in. Hardaway closed out the season averaging 22 points and hitting 46 percent behind the arc in his final 11 games. There’s no sign of his blistering streak slowing down. Porzingis had one 3-pointer bounce up into the atmosphere before falling back in as a made shot, so sure, maybe him. The team’s success doesn’t seem to ride on his offensive production, necessarily, but he contributes to the overall 3-point shooting. When the Mavericks do make fewer 3s in Game 3 or in games later in this series — and it’s inevitable they’ll shoot at least a bit worse — it’s going to be tougher to win. Dallas has outscored L.A. from the 3-point line by 18 points in a 10-point win and then 15 points in a six-point one. But with a 2-0 lead, you can survive a clunker of a shooting performance — or even two. Five more potential games offer a lot of chances to win two.

Dallas gave up 121 points on Tuesday, an outwardly awful defensive showing that I actually thought was mostly good. Sure, they can’t stop Leonard, who scored 41 points but did seem to tire down the stretch with his added Doncic defensive duties amidst 41 minutes played. The Mavericks allowed more 3s this game, although L.A.’s 13-of-33 performance behind the arc still isn’t in line with their record-setting season from 3-point range. But this series’ first two games have shown Dallas at its best in terms of the team’s perimeter activity and consistency of help defense. Although the Mavericks finished the season with just the league’s 14th-best defensive rating, they played stretches showing a much higher ceiling than that, including one from Feb. 16 to April 10 when they had the league’s third-best defensive rating. It’s not just Porzingis, but his combined effort and mobility has been the biggest factor. This play against George exemplifies what Dallas wants from him — he shows enough lateral movement to force George into a stepback 3 while still leaping out with a harassing shot contest.

The Mavericks have rarely sustained all of these various elements for more than a few games at a time this season, but there’s been a litany of extenuating, exhausting circumstances that can explain why. These two performances clearly show that they can. This series isn’t over, but the winning formula is clear. It seems only the Mavericks can prevent themselves from twice more executing it — and, in turn, the Clippers’ season.

Specifically I thought this was a good point: 

Quote

Sure, they can’t stop Leonard, who scored 41 points but did seem to tire down the stretch with his added Doncic defensive duties amidst 41 minutes played

They are asking so much from Kawhi right now, there is no way he can go long stretches working against Luka on defense and still carry the load they need from him on offense. He's struggled to play huge minutes and has needed load management the last few years anyway. He seemed noticeably less effective in the 4Q last night

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3 hours ago, gsoda3 said:

we signed him that summer to a new deal, it was his 4th year. 

He extension didn’t kick in until this year.  We can give Luka a new contract this summer, but he won’t start making that money until the season after next.  He’ll play next season on the team option from his rookie deal.

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He extension didn’t kick in until this year.  We can give Luka a new contract this summer, but he won’t start making that money until the season after next.  He’ll play next season on the team option from his rookie deal.
I don't think so are you sure? He was drafted in 15. He had the standard 2-year guaranteed rookie salary 15-16 and 16-17 and then one year team option 17-18 and another year's team option 18-19. He was traded in 19 and had he stayed with the Knicks he would have become a restricted free agent Summer 2019. We signed him to that contract in summer 2019.
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1 minute ago, gsoda3 said:
16 minutes ago, conVINCEd said:
He extension didn’t kick in until this year.  We can give Luka a new contract this summer, but he won’t start making that money until the season after next.  He’ll play next season on the team option from his rookie deal.

I don't think so are you sure? He was drafted in 15. He had the standard 2-year guaranteed rookie salary 15-16 and 16-17 and then one year team option 17-18 and another year's team option 18-19. He was traded in 19 and had he stayed with the Knicks he would have become a restricted free agent Summer 2019. We signed him to that contract in summer 2019.

Sure about the Luka part, will have to look up the KP part.

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20 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

Are any of y’all going to the Friday night game? I’m jealous. AAC should be crazy fun. 

I'm going to try but ticket prices for decent seats are pretty crazy.  I'm hoping Cuban gets approval to dump a couple of thousand more on the market before tip.

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Sitting in the space of fantasy will obscure what’s happening in the present — a superstar who’s doing more than introducing himself to the NBA world (been there, done that), a player doing more than upsetting a perceived Western Conference apple cart by taking down the Clippers.

What we are seeing is a legend in the making, a generational player fulfilling all the promise that was only whispered about when he was drafted.

Some players fit in a moment, others in a time. Doncic is headed toward the land of the rarest air, of being a player who belongs to history.

And in a couple more games, the Clippers could be just that, too.

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4 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I'm going to try but ticket prices for decent seats are pretty crazy.  I'm hoping Cuban gets approval to dump a couple of thousand more on the market before tip.

I bet tickets will be cheaper for the second round, should we be fortunate enough to advance.  The post-COVID, I’m now vaccinated, let’s fucking party mindset is what is driving these prices.

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2 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

If you just want to be in the building, that's not too bad for the upper deck. 

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I agree 'get in' isn't that bad.  And if we keep advancing there comes a point where I'm all about the 'get in'.  My wife and  I set in 300 level in game 4 of finals and had a blast (although the lower single I snagged for game 5 was clearly much better).  But so damn high up there.  My buddy and I are looking for decent (i.e., not last row behind basket) lower or platinum at or under $300 each after all ridiculous fees.  In normal times that is super easy for round 1.  But this aint normal times, and agree with conVinced it's unique circumstances driving demand (which of course is the same reason i want to be there on Friday if it works out).  Of course, I should probably also run this plan by my wife :)

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3 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I agree 'get in' isn't that bad.  And if we keep advancing there comes a point where I'm all about the 'get in'.  My wife and  I set in 300 level in game 4 of finals and had a blast (although the lower single I snagged for game 5 was clearly much better).  But so damn high up there.  My buddy and I are looking for decent (i.e., not last row behind basket) lower or platinum at or under $300 each after all ridiculous fees.  In normal times that is super easy for round 1.  But this aint normal times, and agree with conVinced it's unique circumstances driving demand (which of course is the same reason i want to be there on Friday if it works out).  Of course, I should probably also run this plan by my wife :)

Sums up my feelings perfectly.  I’m headed out of town for a week on Sunday, and may do the Colonial on Friday since they announced the Spieth/Phil grouping.  One of my favorite days on the DFW sports calendar is Colonial topped off with dinner at a Joe T’s.  Just a really nice day.  Back on topic, I’m holding out for, if we are fortunate enough to advance, the second round when the lower corners/platinum seats  will hopefully be more reasonable.

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Luka is just amazing.  It's not just a numbers game -- he's controlling the series so far and creating so many open looks for his supporting cast.  I love Dirk and consider him an amazing player too, but I have little doubt Luka is going to surpass him someday for a career.  I'm so fascinated to see Luka continue and grow his game (he can still improve with 3pt/FT shooting and turnovers) and I think when it's all said and done, he may even surpass all-time every player from this current generation (Curry/Durant/Harden types) except maybe LeBron.

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21 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I agree 'get in' isn't that bad.  And if we keep advancing there comes a point where I'm all about the 'get in'.  My wife and  I set in 300 level in game 4 of finals and had a blast (although the lower single I snagged for game 5 was clearly much better).  But so damn high up there.  My buddy and I are looking for decent (i.e., not last row behind basket) lower or platinum at or under $300 each after all ridiculous fees.  In normal times that is super easy for round 1.  But this aint normal times, and agree with conVinced it's unique circumstances driving demand (which of course is the same reason i want to be there on Friday if it works out).  Of course, I should probably also run this plan by my wife :)

Your best bet is to wait as close to the tip time as possible. If that is something you can do. People will come down on their prices as the time goes on if they have not sold them. 

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1 minute ago, LurkingHorn said:

Did you look at the link above? I see some for $70-$80. 

I did.  That’s why I said no it’s not (unreasonable). After having mid court, lower level season tickets for the better part of my life, I can be a bit of a seat snob.  I would rather watch on tv than sit behind the basket in the 300s.  That changes if we’re talking about the championship round.

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