08-18-2023, 11:04 AM
(08-18-2023, 07:45 AM)DanSchwartzgan Wrote: I guess it depends on the starting point you select. In early January we spent the better part of two weeks in 3rd in the west. Prior to the trade, we were 0-7 in games Luka missed. After the trade, we were 5-3 (excluding the tank game to end the season). Luka is going to miss some games, so that is a significant development.
Irving replaced Dinwiddie from that 3rd place team.
GWill replaced DFS from that 3rd place team.
One of those is a massive upgrade and the other is TBD. We also moved on from negative on/court players like Wood, Reggie and Bertans (not to mention the 1,450 minutes played by McGee, Wright, Pinson, Holiday and Kemba).
A positive on/court player like Green will get a bigger role, but after that it is just supposition to say we know what Curry, DJJ, Exum, Hardy, the Rookies and Holmes will give us. We hope Powell and THJ don't backslide and that Maxi returns to his historic form. One can make whatever positive or negative case they want, but the truth is we just don't know.
BUT, and this is important, all of those unknowns don't have to be great. They just have to contribute more to winning than Wood, Reggie, Bertans and the 1,450 minutes of end-of-roster trash from last season. It is a SUPER LOW bar to achieve.
I don't think you can take Mavs best position from some point in the season and clame that that team was 3rd best. Strength of schedule, availability of players on competition and similar plays significant role. That same team was also out of playoffs at different points of the season as teams were extremely close and positions changed very quickly. Luka played supernova and wore down in half a season, because they asked so much from him (remember all the times he played whole second half even against average teams).
In similar way I could take the post trade result and take that as a basis. That team was 10-18, which is approximately a 30 win season. But I rather take season as a whole, which was 38 wins. A jump from there to 44 wins is assuming that several things went right. A better result would mean that a lot/most of things went right. It is certainly possible. But, it is also possible that less things than expected will go right. From that perspective, the 44 wins is imho a reasonable in between number.