In just a few months, new Mavericks President Masai Ujiri and his counterpart, general manager Mike Schmitz, have grabbed this franchise by the ends and, in a single offseason, with one mighty heave, shaken off all the baggage clinging to this team like dust on an old rug. What was once one of the most stable franchises in basketball has undergone such swift and drastic change that it’s nearly unrecognizable. New GM, new coach, new players. This season will not look like any other recent season of Dallas Mavericks basketball. And that’s great news.
With Dallas finally emerging from the shadow of the “AD Era”, perhaps the darkest in the team’s history, fans are being presented with a roster full of new, young faces that fit the timeline of newly minted franchise cornerstone, Cooper Flagg. It signals that this front office is heeding the advice of Ron Swanson. “Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”
While there are still some vets on this roster (for now… the LeBron decision may mean more roster changes are still ahead of us), the Mavericks have taken an unmistakably youth-oriented stance. They are clearly taking the first step in rebuilding a roster that has been hamstrung between contending and tanking for too long.
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Dallas is taking a gap year
Dallas will not be contending for a championship this season. That much should be obvious, but they’re also not simply going to let this season go to waste. With very little in their war chest of draft picks to work with, Dallas’ new braintrust went to work quickly adding low-risk, high-reward developmental pieces. Outside of ninth overall pick Morez Johnson, who will shoulder much of the upside expectations by virtue of being Dallas’ last lottery pick for the foreseeable future, the calculus for the other newly acquired players nets out to something between “it’d be nice if he panned out” and “if this works they’re going to call us geniuses.”
In true gap year fashion, Dallas seems poised to spend this season “finding themselves.” They’re going to be developing opinions on what kind of team they can or are able to be, which players on the roster fit that vision, or can grow into a role on that team, and clarify where they still need to address team deficiencies.
The freedom to enjoy things
By unshackling your enjoyment of basketball from the binary of the win/loss column, you are free to find happiness in the margins.
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“I hope AD can play today.”
“This is a huge loss for the tank standings.”
“Man, screw Utah, we’re tanking too, but not like THAT.”
These are all thoughts that no longer need to enter your mind. Not only is Dallas in a position to focus entirely on player development, but they also don’t even need to worry about winning too much or not losing enough, because we do not own our pick. Every decision made can be in service of making our players better. And in the meantime, things like…
“Awesome, Cooper scored 50.”
“Wow, Morez just threw down the nastiest dunk I’ve ever seen.”
“Dang, Sergio had double-digit assists.”
…are all nuggets of joy that can be enjoyed at face value, with no ulterior motive.
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Your new favorite player is already on the team
To that end, one of the beautiful parts about being a sports fan is watching a player develop. Hopefully into the kind of player that one day means your team is a real post-season contender. And, odds are, with how many new names are about to get embroidered onto the backs of these Dallas jerseys, there’s likely a new fan-favorite just waiting to emerge. In the same way Dirk was able to pass the baton to Luka, now Dwight Powell can perhaps pass the baton to Sergio de Larrea. Or Tarik Biberovic. Or Zaccharie Risacher. Or Santi Aldama. Or, hell, why not, Vsevolod Ishchenko!
Dallas is fully committed to throwing every dart they can at the board and rolling with whoever sticks. It’s a great teambuilding tactic for a team that’s going to have to get creative in how they go about adding talent around Flagg this season and beyond.
And there’s something about an unknown — someone with no expectations, rising to not only meet what little you expected of them, but exceed it. JJ Barea, Dorian Finney-Smith, Salah Mejri; the next iteration of that guy is here, and this season is all about finding out who that is. It’s the basketball version of a whodunnit, but instead of a murder, it’s about who’s going to be a Dallas Maverick for the next five to seven years. Whoever it is will no doubt be embraced by this fanbase, hungry to see their team return to relevance after 18 months of the most torturous basketball ever experienced.
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