2022/23 NBA REGULAR SEASON THREAD "TANKING FOR WEMBANYAMA"

i know mavs player haters ball is one of our favorite pastimes around here but it’s not really all that crazy that after a 15 year stretch of success with the best player in franchise history they had a three year dip after the guy retired. it doesn’t strike me as exceptional in any way honestly

also they didn’t stumble into luka they went and got him by trading a single first round pick aka making one of the best trades in NBA history that any other team could have topped by throwing in a grand total of two first round picks. given what stars are going for now it was just a massive coup and again literally any team could’ve put their chips in the middle for luka and nobody did. it wasn’t a giannis situation

tbh i forgot the mavs traded up for luka rather than a bunch of dumb teams passing on him (though a couple dumb teams did pass on him)

i don't think it's fair to prior mavs management, who ran out of steam but did some really good things in their time, to lump them in with current mavs management who might well be incompetent

idk the mavs are a good team, but they need another guy

“We just play soft, man,”

- Anthony Edwards on the Minnesota Timberwolves pic.twitter.com/7IDd6RAXG9

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) November 8, 2022

fact check: true

Cuban's decisions have been baffling for 20 years - he inherited Dirk, their most successful draft pick between Dirk and Luka was Devin Harris IIRC (or Josh Howard, maybe - one of them was the only drafted player to last more than like five seasons with the team). Chase a huge free agent, get spurned, set money on fire for Erick Dampier or Raef Lafrentz. The Porzingis sign and trade was another in that long line, even though they clawed a little advantage back pawning him off on the Wizards.

there was the part where they won the nba finals

i know this is prob the 4th time weve had this discussion but the major datapoint that uh points to the conclusion that they lucked into that champ team is they immediately dismantled it ie did not run it back truly one of the most insane decisions in the history of the league, underrated

they really had to hit the sweet spot of being dumb while thinking theyre geniuses, the mark cuban effect, because a normal dumb org wouldve just run it back, as would a smart one

also worth considering, letting nash walk exactly before he went supernova

it’s not that they’re beyond criticism because they’re certainly not. but if you were gonna rank every NBA franchise by titles, finals appearances, playoff appearances, playoff wins, regular season wins etc over the last 20 years the mavs would shake out as one of the 6-8 most successful orgs in the NBA. but the conversation we always seem to have about them is always about whether they’re incompetent, which doesn’t make sense to me

theyve done a lot of weird shit theyre a bit of a mystery idk

theres also the scandalous disfunction of the org thats been in the news the last x number of years, kinda feel like they might be experiencing lakers syndrome in that theyve fallen behind the league as far their level of management professionalism, same could be said for the suns who are also a good team, but they are i suspect prob making their job more difficult than it need be from that perspective

there was def circus vibes to them that one offseason… they also got trashed everywhere including here for pushing out carlisle in favor of jason kidd and it looks like everyone was wrong about that move. hiring a GM from nike seemed kinda crazy but he’s made some moves that were clearly good. they also didn’t handle the brunson thing the way they should have… the javale signing already seems as dumb as it did when they signed unit. they also were just in the west finals. they’re currently no 5 in net rating but we’ll see how it plays out. again it’s not like you can’t point out the flaws but they’ve done just as much good stuff over the years that nobody ever brings up when we have this discussion

do they get credit for unlocking tyson chandler as a legit player w/ that title team? go look up the trade they made to get jason terry. they developed barea out of nowhere. they just made the west finals where the entire team aside from luka was second round picks, UDFAs, or other team’s cast offs that they developed into good players.

idk theyve always looked like a middle of the pack org to me. dont think theyre amazing or incompetent

dysfunctional though, yes, probably

thing is as far as judging them on their outcomes is theres a lot of stuff that looks suspiciously like getting lucky, maybe theyre just lucky, maybe its cuban the guy who sold a non working video platform to yahoo for billions of dollars

do they get credit for unlocking tyson chandler as a legit player w/ that title team? go look up the trade they made to get jason terry. they developed barea out of nowhere. they just made the west finals where the entire team aside from luka was second round picks, UDFAs, or other team’s cast offs that they developed into good players.

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, November 9, 2022 11:01 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

they did have one of the best coaches and they hired him and kept him on for a long time when he had previously washed out of a couple orgs despite a lot of on court success, imo you can def put that one in the pro column

while I think I fall closer to jordan’s side in this debate, I do think that having a transcendent player, who as been pointed out preceded cuban’s tenure, did like 75% of the heavy lifting for their single NBA title in 20 years and they’ve done questionable things mixed in with good things since then

and they prob let carlisle go at the right time too, the kidd thing is just lucky tho im sorry... probably, and even that he could be just hitting a sweet spot where hes benefiting from carlises offensive/development work while being able to use his strong suit of getting the guys to play hard, will be interesting to see if the mavs continue to find diamonds in the rough

tehyre one of those teams that instead of rebuilding wants to just always be pretty good and hope to spike a finals run now and then, which, they have done. but teams like that tend to make weirder moves to try to sustain their thing

even the mavs getting to the western finals: lucky

conclusion: theyre just lucky, but its real, they actually have luck on their side

i will say they are smarter than the three teams that didnt take luka

I do think that having a transcendent player, who as been pointed out preceded cuban’s tenure, did like 75% of the heavy lifting for their single NBA title in 20 year

i mean...isn't a transcendent player largely responsible for 90% of championship teams?

crazy thing about that mavs team was the lack of a second star, hadnt happen like that since the rockets first title with hakeem

may be a challops but i think the hawks move was fine at the time, it didnt pan out but they did get the 2nd best player in the draft and another lottery pick its easy to imagine a world in which luka is a bit worse and they won

the other 2 teams though, yeah

03-04 Pistons are probably the biggest outlier

i mean if we're talking about acquiring a top 25 player of all time yeah you probably need some luck. the cavs and spurs won lotteries to get lebron and tim duncan. the warriors needed one of the worst GMs of all time to take two different PGs over steph curry. idk that's kinda how this sport works a lot of the time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

hawks is more forgivable but on some level there was a systemic failure where the nba as a whole didnt recognize luka as the consensus #1 pick, which he absolutely should have been based on the available evidence, but the mavs zigged and traded up, and for that they deserve credit

yeah i remember asking why he wasnt the consensus in here at the time and no one really had an answer

he was the mvp of the second best league in the world at 18, meanwhile the suns are drafting ayton at 1 to fill a positional need, total madness

i give sacto a partial pass just because i respect balkan blood fueds

wld be cool if another insane team defense team came along like that pistons team so we could check and see if it still works. probably not because of hoisting

luka is more valuable than the entire hawks roster i know they're a decent to good team and all but he's gonna be one of the very best players in the history of the sport and he was just sitting right there for them

also they just dont let you play physical anymore, lock down d not really possible xp

not to ruin heez's day, always respect heez, but i can't fathom what the hawks would have to put in a trade to acquire luka. trae, murray, collins, 4 first round picks... you name it. if you were starting an NBA team from scratch and were given the option of "luka and figure it out" or the hawks roster i don't think you'd even hesitate w/ your decision

also they just dont let you play physical anymore, lock down d not really possible xp

― lag∞n, Wednesday, November 9, 2022 11:33 AM (forty-six seconds ago)

yeah the game is totally different now, we're never going to see games played in the 80s again and thank god for that. when tayshaun prince had that block against the pacers in the playoffs the score was 69-67 with 40 seconds left in the game. pure madness. but the celtics and warriors were 1-2 in defensive rating last year... the celtics and heat in particular played some ugly games in the ECF. i think you still need an incredible defense to win the title in most years

defense now, like much of the league, is more about optimization than really imposing your will or whatever

you gotta have guards, wings, and bigs who can guard up and down the positional spectrum and you gotta be able to mix and match line ups. the one outlier might be the bucks who are a more traditional defense built around huge rim protector type guys. and i guess we'll see about the cavs

schlenk wanted to build warriors east it made some sense at the time. hindsight says not so much. but they got a franchise guy and will be competitive-to-great for a long time depending how things shake, so its not a total loss.

suns decision is still one of the all time fumbles. luka cried so he didnt have the right mindset... so they picked a notoriously un-serious local big.

re mavs: they have for sure been more successful than the majority of the league and getting luka alone moves them into the top half/third range. i think it's that they had one of the all time greats and only got one chip, and now they've got another and we're skeptical they know what to do. they got a little success last year and then didnt retain their 2nd best player and brought back christian wood. the team is worse than last year, but luka is likely better so it may be a wash.

the christian wood trade was unambiguously good? what am i missing. also if you go by net rating they've so far been twice as good as they were last year

luka coming into the season ready to go is a big reason.

wood is fine but keeping brunson woulda been better

speaking of poor franchises... the nets name Vaughn their head coach

i think it's that they had one of the all time greats and only got one chip, and now they've got another and we're skeptical they know what to do

i feel like these are just really high bars of success to clear & some teams do clear them historically but also not clearing them can still mean you're a very successful franchise. do we shit on the jazz and knicks franchises of the 90s for not being able to win w/ malone and stockton, ewing etc? those great pistons teams won one title. the KG era celtics won one title. winning two titles is really hard! not many teams can pull it off. the mavs were in a conference w/ one of the true dynasties in NBA history. i mean we can go thru every series the mavs lost in that era, it's not really all that damning to me

2001 - lost to the spurs in round 2... no shame in losing to the spurs
2002 - lost to the kings in round 2... webber era kings were one of the best teams in the league
2003 - lost to the spurs in WCF... ditto again on the spurs
2004 - lost to the kings in round 1... don't really remember this kings team but you can prob ding them for this one
2005 - lost to the suns in round 2... d'antoni/nash era suns, great teams
2006 - lost to the heat in the finals... made the finals & we all know what happened in this series
2007 - lost to the warriors in round 1... ok we know this one was bad
2008 - lost to the hornets in round 1... lmao uhh
2009 - lost to the nuggets in round 2... the one great melo team, don't remember this series but i'm sure the mavs could win. fine.
2010 - lost to the spurs in round 1... losing to the spurs, whatever
2011 - win the championship... ok let's remember they won the title
2012 - lost to the thunder in round 1.. the west starts shifting here to the KD era thunder + spurs revival teams. great teams. idk

and then from here they fall off as we know towards the end of dirk's career. it's a bit of a mixed bag no doubt, some bad losses, some acceptable ones, made the finals twice, won the title. the 2004-2010 stretch has some early losses... they also made the finals in there. the idea that this is some particularly objectionable stretch for an NBA franchise i just don't buy, i'm sorry. dirk is great but he wasn't magic johnson or larry bird something. a lot of players as great as him or better (barkley, malone, KG etc) did not win more titles than him

and as far as the luka era goes... luka is 23. that the mavs don't have everything quite lined up for him at this stage in his career is far from abnormal historically speaking in the NBA. let's see what happens over the next 3-4 years

agree! but im skeptical

they need another guy