Did you ever watch the pre-Dirk Mavs?? Obviously not, otherwise you would never say that they are not likely to miss the playoffs as much as the Rockets. The Dallas Mavericks were literally the laughing stock of the NBA for a large portion of the 80s and 90s. Irrelevance defined.
That was before Mark Cuban bought the Mavs. He will always spend money to make the team relevant. Last year they were all one year contracts so they could have a chance to make a run at Howard. They missed out on him and now they are building a team around Dirk again. Any team can become bad for a period of time, but owners like Cuban who have money to spend don't stay bad for long. Building a contender is difficult but putting together a team to make the playoffs is not that hard in the NBA. This is not MLB we are talking about here.
not to m mention, dirk, vince and marion are all a year older and a year slower, likewise for dalembert.
That can easily be explained with 2 words. "Isiah Thomas". The guy paid ****ty players high priced contracts and even after he was fired it took the Knicks 4 years to recover. That is not the situation they have in Dallas with Dirk. Isiah Thomas was one of the worst, if not the worst NBA GM of all time.
Irrelevance defined? Cuban bought the team in 2000. I'm comparing apples to apples. Cuban is not les and doesn't have the patience to be mediocre for a decade. Just look at his track record and what he does each year to his roster. Yes he's out of assets and it will be difficult without dirk, but if I would bet on one owner to put together a team that can compete in the shortest period of time, it would be him.
Yeah, he's been willing to consistently pay the luxury tax, and unlike an owner like Dolan, Cuban listens to his stats gurus. He struck out two seasons in a row (which is awesome to laugh at), but I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to turn it around and became an average playoff team sooner rather than later.
Calderon, as much as I like him, is a passing PG. Not significantly better than Lin, and can get stuffed by Beverley. Harden always shuts Ellis down. VC/Matrix are effective, but not elite anymore. I like Parsons' athleticism, but don't know if we have any other good wing stoppers. This is where we can get hurt. Dirk is Dirk. Throw an athletic, long 3/4 at him and hope for the best. Dalembert is serviceable, but inconsistent. We still go far deeper than them. Our advantage is still our pace.
Dallas fans are def among the worst in general. Delusional surely, but they are just as piss poor in losing as they are when winning. Nice to see their sharp decline...rarely see any Mavs posts around here or facebook, etc. Good riddance...stay irrelevant, Dallas.
I mean, these are the same folks who, after winning a championship, claimed Dirk to be the best player in all of basketball, LBJ be damned. Hell, best in history...they claimed Dirk is better than Hakeem ever was. Talk about nut riding...jeez.
