Judgement-Free (Over)Reaction Thread

[KillerLeft]

There’s no way an entire season of performance as the greatest offense ever can be a fluke. That’s too many observations statistically to be random chance. Now, can it be it’s a fluke they were the greatest ever, but were still in fact really good?  Of course, even likely.  But they’ve regressed to the point of being just downright horrible, which makes no sense, even with the COVID protocols. They’ve been bad all season, before, during, and now after COVID, despite making only minor changes to a youngish roster.  I’m really mystified. Basketball has like the least variation of any sport. It’s hard to believe.

Totally agree. 

This year (so far) is the fluke, at least with the team-wide shooting woes. They are behind the rest of the league when it comes to conditioning, rhythm, knowing their responsibilities on the court, playing off of one another, etc.  passes are happening early or late and it is as if the ball is carrying concentrated nervousness from one player to the next. The rest of the league is rounding into midseason form while the Mavericks are basically ending training camp right now.

We are all sick of hearing about how sucky it is that the whole rotation got Covid, but just because we are tired of hearing it doesn’t mean it doesn’t impact them negatively. It’s not just about having them available to play, it’s about making up for all the time they missed. Important time. There are numerous issues affected by this, both individually and as a team.

They told us themselves that the team who navigated Covid most successfully this season was going to be the most successful team. Carlisle said it. Luka said it. Others said it. So far, they have done the worst job of that in the entire NBA. I’m not saying I definitely know it could have been avoided, but I am saying that it was clearly too much for them to overcome. I saw this coming the second the bad news broke.

It is what it is. Nothing to do now but to work through this.