Game 26: Dallas Mavericks (9-16) vs. Brooklyn Nets (6-17) | 7:30pm CST

[DanSchwartzgan]

That was another exciting game to watch. I believe we are at 20 clutch games so far. I would feel good about the current situation if our recent success made any sense. But it doesn't, those fun but meaninglgess wins just screw with out chances for a nice pick next year. If the season continues like this, our ceiling is playing Denver in the first round as a 7th seed. Do we really want this?

Nick at the Locked On Mav's podcast did a really nice job discussing this yesterday.  His heart says the wins are fun and the players deserve a chance to go for it.  His head says basically what you said...we need a premium pick.

There is some thought that Kyrie might get back before the calendar year end.  That would give the team a month to evaluate this group of three stars.  If the offers for AD aren't great, why not wait and see what you have (obviously they why not is because the longer this lasts the worse your pick gets).  But, that was always going to be the conundrum of building back AD's value.  On the other side of the coin, the why-not for letting him play and carrying this to the summer is he starts to accrue more power in looking for an extension.  

BTW, in the same episode, Nick played a very insightful clip from Kidd responding to a question pre-game from Vince Carter.  He talked about NBA games being won in the final 6 minutes...especially the final 3.  The Flagg at PG experiment was about seeing what the kid could do so they could know how he'd respond to pressurized late game situations.  The segment is worth listening to.  Whether through Kidd's approach or not, it appears Flagg has the clutch gene. Kyrie is already famously one of the best fourth quarter players in history.  Combine those two and if NBA games tend to come down to the final few minutes, we stand a chance to win a lot of games we might not expect to win.