What is going on with the Mavs?

[mavsluvr]

Since we've gotten Luka and seen him flash a kind of savant transcendence in basketball that only comes around once in a while, I've been extremely high on the Mavs.  I'm a homer of course, so that plays into my biases, but I felt the Mavs have struck gold with Luka. This was only bolstered after we got KP. After that, I expected the Mavs to be a 50 win team from here on out. I guess Dirk has spoiled me, given that the Mavs has always been a 50 win team for a decade straight. I wanted them to come in and handle business. Like I said I would be a-okay if the Mavs would be 0-4 and lost close contested games. But they look off. The offense is stagnated. The players are making poor choices. The defense is lackadaisical and it seems like every game the entire team as a whole decides to give half effort in all areas of basketball and hopes to skate by. 

Maybe this is a big overreaction and the Mavs will look totally different against the Heat. But I've told myself that before each game and haven't shaken this feeling. How many times can we say that before the Mavs playoff hopes are in peril?

More than four. I mean, the daggone Cowboys are still in contention for the playoffs. 


I think most of us have had a tendency to expect the Mavs to start this season where they left off last season, and make progress from there. I have to admit that, in practice, this almost never happens, even in normal seasons. Teams usually take a temporary step back when they begin a new season, due to personnel changes, game strategy changes, health issues of the players, etc., and they take a while to get into their best form. Ideally, they peak entering the playoffs, not early in the season. That appears to be going on in spades around the league now, and the Mavs haven't escaped it. 

They haven't looked very good in some of these games. Downright bad, on occasion. I am not arguing otherwise. But I haven't seen anything after four games that makes me think this is some kind of unfixable lottery team. They mainly look out of sync, like they aren't on a string at this point, and aren't necessarily even in game shape. 

I mean, maybe you're right. Maybe we've already seen the best of the Mavs, and the future is hopeless. I admit that's possible. But if I were having to make a case for my prediction, I think I would have an easier time making a case that they probably will make the playoffs than that they won't. 

I guess I could just be Pollyannish. It's not always easy to separate emotions from facts when we love our team, and have such high hopes with Luka. It's possible to knee-jerk in the optimistic direction, as well as the pessimistic.