DALLAS — Over the remaining six weeks of the regular season and on into whatever awaits at the end of another rusty rainbow, we’ll learn a lot about these Dallas Mavericks.
The question of whether Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic can coexist? Pretty much answered already. What remains to be determined is their combined effect on the rest of the roster and how far they drive this bus as a result.
And then, of course, there’s what Mark Cuban and Nico Harrison will do with it once it all shakes out.
This came up the other day when I read Jason Terry’s answer to a question posed by our Brad Townsend about what would have happened if the Mavs hadn’t blown up the 2011 title team.
Maybe you remember how that went not long after they’d swept up the confetti:
Out went Tyson Chandler, J.J. Barea and DeShawn Stevenson.
In came Lamar Odom, Vince Carter and Delonte West.
That hurt just typing it.
Cuban and Donnie Nelson had their reasons for not trying to run it back with the same roster. Mostly a collective bargaining agreement in the offing. The Mavs famously wanted to “keep their powder dry” for a run at Dwight Howard or Deron Williams in the summer of 2012.
Except Howard ended up signing a one-year deal with the Lakers in ‘12, and the Mavs whiffed on him again in ‘13 when he went to the Rockets.
Bottom line: The quixotic pursuit of a center whose species was on the verge of extinction cost them not only the services of Chandler — heart of the Mavs’ defense and the gritty difference from all the marshmallow-centered, jump-shooting confections that preceded — it cost them Giannis Antetokounmpo, too. Because when Donnie told his boss during the ‘13 draft that they had to pick the Greek Freak when it came their turn, Cuban said no.
They were sticking to their cap space plan, he said, which meant trading down, saving $400,000 and crossing their fingers.
You know how that worked out. Chandler turned down the Mavs’ two-year offer for a four-year deal in New York, where he was Defensive Player of the Year in 2012. Meanwhile, the Mavs went from parade floats to a first-round derailment.
Over the next 10 seasons, Rick Carlisle never looked as smart as he did in ‘11. Luka Doncic wasn’t impressed, anyway.
Which brings us back to Terry’s recent comments, and this quote in particular:
“Our experience, our toughness, our collective will to win was something that, if we could have kept everything together, could have definitely won another one, maybe two or three championships.”
Let’s concede up front that if Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, Terry, Barea and Stevenson had all bunked in Cuban’s cabana the remainder of the decade, they weren’t winning three titles. Probably just the one. More than likely, they were the anomaly championed by Charles Barkley, who called a one-star team beating a three-headed monster one of the greatest coaching jobs ever.
Funny thing is, even the Mavs were shocked that they won it all. Or at least that’s what Donnie implied in the summer of 2011. “Lightning in a bottle,” he told me.
Re-sign Chandler? Donnie reminded that he’d played in 45 and 51 games the two seasons before the Mavs acquired him. The local response wasn’t overwhelming upon his arrival, he said, implying maybe we shouldn’t get too worked up on Chandler’s way out.
Cuban admitted his mistake when the Mavs reacquired Chandler in the summer of ‘14, but there was no fixing it then.
My point in ‘11, as well as now, was that, no matter how improbable they thought the title team, they owed it to themselves and their fans to try to run it back again. Winning it all should have changed the plan. Any team in any sport bears a responsibility to defend its title, or else you deserve to get lumped with the likes of the Marlins.
Unlike the Marlins, the Mavs didn’t blow it up because they were cheap. They did it because they were looking down the road for something better than what they couldn’t recognize under their noses. Wouldn’t be the last time, either.
Jalen Brunson didn’t win a title with the Mavs, but they wouldn’t have made it to the Western Conference finals without him, either. As the quality of his playoff performances with and without Luka mounted, Jason Kidd kept saying he was making himself a lot of money. Cuban pledged every effort to make sure it came out of his pocket.
Turns out the fix was already in, which is why the league penalized the Knicks a second-round pick for tampering. But it might not have had to come to that, either.
The mistake was made in the summer of ‘21, when the Mavs figured they could pay either Brunson or Dorian Finney-Smith, and they picked the latter.
You could argue they had no idea Brunson would morph into a guy averaging 23.9 points and 6.2 assists while turning the Knicks into a playoff contender for the second time in the last decade. Heck, some of you couldn’t see it in the playoffs last year.
Because the Mavs didn’t recognize what was right in front of them, they were forced to trade for the league’s most polarizing player this month. Now they wait to see how it works out. Does he sign long-term? Short? Will they even want to re-sign him? Hard to say now. They’re making decisions based on what the roster will look like in the summer of ‘25, the year before Luka can opt out. They’re doing everything they can to keep him happy. As usual, they’re looking down the road.
