How the hell did we get here?

[Thespiralgoeson]

Melonhead has earned the eternal right to make playoff series threads. Gotta keep the good vibes going.

But man, I hope everyone left here takes a moment to appreciate how insane, how amazing, and- considering the shape the franchise was in just a year and a half ago- how utterly improbable it is that the Mavericks are going to the NBA finals.

I just wanna catalogue the incredible journey here.

Mavs from 2012-ish to 2018- Post championship doldrums. The Plan Powder years. Have things ever seemed more hopeless? Somewhere on this forum, I said that the Mavs have maybe the bleakest future of any team in the league. The team just got older and older, and the front office didn't seem remotely concerned for the future. Poor Dirk never won another playoff series after winning his title. Meanwhile year after year, the Mavs keep chasing the big free agents and miss on every single one of them- often in very public and very humiliating fashion (Deandre Jordan, anyone?) Year after year we field a team of mediocre, aging veterans, and get nothing whatsoever out the draft. We finally start tanking in the desperate, unlikely hope that we'll find a new superstar to carry us into the future. I repeatedly brace myself for the proposition that it might be decades before the Mavs land a player even 80% as good as Dirk.

2018- The Mavs trade up from the 5th pick to the 3rd pick in the draft to get a Slovenian super prospect named Luka Doncic. The savvier fans know that this is a great pick, and that the potential is sky high. On a personal note, I was not one of those savvier fans. I really only follow the NBA- don't even watch college basketball- so I had never heard of Luka. However, on draft day, I immediately start seeing articles and hearing buzz about how the Mavs got the best player in the draft. Turns out, this kid is the most accomplished young player to ever come into the draft. He dominated the highest levels of competition in Europe (which is far higher than the NCAA), as a teenager. He might even be the best prospect since Lebron.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRX2HbNgzwE Anyone who reads this post, please watch this video. This is a classic, priceless time capsule. This dude predicted Luka's greatness before he ever got to the NBA. I remember watching this and being hyped about of my goddamn mind.

2018-2019 season- Luka surpasses all expectations. He has one of the greatest rookie seasons of all time. The future looks so bright and everyone is jacked. If that wasn't enough, in January 2019, the Mavs pull off what appears to be yet another amazing coup, and trade for Kristaps Porzingis. KP is a 24 year old all star who most people think has superstar potential. He's recovering from a torn ACL and won't play until the next year, but man, we're all euphoric at how bright the future looks.

2019-2020- Luka doesn't just improve from year 1 to year 2. He practially goes Super Saiyan. His improvement as a 20 year old sophomore is a quantum leap. He almost instantly transforms himself into a top 5 player. Kristaps, on the other hand. is up and down. Sometimes he struggles, sometimes he looks great. In February 2020, KP starts beasting. Then the Covid lockdown happens, but KP's dominance continues into the Bubble. I'm sooooooooo excited for the future. This looks like a superstar duo that could be a championship contender for years and years. Luka makes first team all-nba in his second year. This puts him in legendary company- only Bird, Duncan, West, Robertson, and Rick Barry have ever done this. (Also like those legendary players, Luka has made 1st team all-nba ever since.) We get matched up with the championship favorite Clippers. KP hurts his knee and is out for the whole playoffs. A bad omen of things to come. Luka however hits an instant-ly iconic game-winning 3 to win game 4. The Mavs end up pushing the Clippers to 6, which they had no business doing.

2020-2021 season- Mavs have very limited trade assets after the KP trade. And unfortunately, the season is up and down for the Mavs. But mostly up. Mavs still make the playoffs and improve from the previous year. Unfortunately however, we end up drawing the Clippers again and lose in 7 (after blowing a 2-0 lead.) What we have next is incredible turmoil that turns out to be an incredible blessing. The Mavs part ways with both Rick Carlisle and Donnie Nelson. They hire Nico Harrison as the GM- which I was very excited about. They hire Jason Kidd as head coach, which as I was very NOT excited about. The future is uncertain. KP is frequently injured, and the fit with Luka is questionable at best.

2021-2022 season- Things are once again up and down. KP continues to miss games and struggle. Jalen Brunson is a bright spot though. And Kidd amazingly turns to the team into one of the best defensive teams in the league. The team is still mid-tier at best though and doesn't appear to be going anywhere. Then at the trade deadline, the KP experiment finally ends. We trade KP to Washington for what appears to be just salary filler. It appears to be a classic addition-by-subtraction trade. But then something unexpected happens. Spencer Dinwiddie has a career revival, and the trade ends up turning the whole season around. The Mavs finish the regular season strong, then take care of the Jazz in the first round. We Mavs fans are mostly just happy to win a playoff series for the first time since 2011. We have very little expectations of beating the 64-win title favorite Suns in round 2. But then.. something miraculous happens. The Mavs push the Suns to 7 games, and then in game 7, the Mavs utterly humiliate and dominate the Suns on their home court, in one of the most incredible events I've ever witnessed in the history of sports. The Mavs suddenly are in the Western Conference Finals. We lose to the eventual champion Warriors, but that's ok. We're way ahead of schedule. Jalen Brunson emerged as a solid #2, and it appears the Mavs are right on the cusp of winning a title.

2022-2023- Hopes are incredibly high to start the offseason. Just gotta re-sign Brunson, which is supposedly a done deal, and then we only need to solidify the frontcourt. We trade the #26 pick for Christian Wood which looks like an absolute steal. Wood is one of the most talented offensive bigs in the league, he's gonna feast on lops from Luka! All we gotta do now is re-sign Brunson, and we're ready to win a title, right? RIGHT????? Welp, Brunson leaves and signs with the Knicks. We lose him for nothing. There is a great deal of debate on this forum how big a deal it really is, but I maintain that it is catastrophic. I take no pleasure in being right. The season is more or less a trainwreck. Not only do we not replace Brunson's production, but Wood turns out to be bust as well. To add insult to injury, Brunson turns out to be a legitimate star in New York. One cannot help but feel echoes of Steve Nash. Luka has maybe the worst supporting cast of any superstar in the league. Many start to lose hope and assume Luka will leave the Mavs the moment he becomes a free agent, or worse, demand a trade before then. Then.....

February 26, 2023- The Mavericks trade for Kyrie Irving. To say this is controversial would be an understatement. Kyrie is by far the most polarizing player in the league. Before the trade, I am on record repeatedly on this forum saying that I wouldn't take Kyrie for free, and that the Mavs should stay FAR away from him. This is not at all an unpopular opinion. But the moment it happens, typical sports fans that we are, we all start talking ourselves into it. Contrary to popular opinion outside of the Mavs fanbase, Luka and Kyrie actually do fit together very well. However, the Mavs are still the worst defensive team and the worst rebounding team and have the worst frontcourt in the league, so the team struggles and ends up missing the playoffs. The Mavs tank the final game which is incredibly controversial and gets the Mavs a lot of negative criticism, but turns out to be 100% the right decision. (More on that in a second)

2023-2024- Most of the basketball world is very low on the Mavs. The Kyrie trade is seen by most as a huge mistake- even after re-signing him on a team friendly deal. The Mavs fanbase isn't too optimistic either for the most part. It's clear the Mavs are more than a piece away from competing. We need to basically overhaul the whole roster outside of Luka and Kyrie. Well, the Nico Harrison does exactly that in the offseason. By tanking the end of the previous season, the Mavs end up keeping their FRP. We draft what appears to be Tyson Chandler 2.0 in Derek Lively II, and trade for a 3-D specialist in Grant Williams. We know we still need another C, and some wing depth, but this is a great start.

Lively is a revelation. He exceeds all expectations. The team is maddeningly inconsistent though. Luka and Kyrie look great together, and when Lively is on the floor the Mavs are really good. However the moment Lively is off the floor our lack of size and toughness in the frontcourt becomes very apparent. Grant Williams does not live up to expectations. Despite all the improvement, the Mavs are still a lower-tier playoff team at best, and nowhere near competing for a title. Then....

Nico strikes again. In what may be the greatest trade deadline in NBA history, Nico gets us both a really, really good center and a big, tough, athletic wingman. The national media once again writes us off, blathering about the draft picks we gave up. But they fail to see that the Mavs significantly improved their team on BOTH ENDS of the court.

We all know what happens next. The Mavs completely turn the season around. (Other than awful stretch where we lost 5 out of 6), the Mavs have been the been arguably the best team in the league since the trade deadline. Certainly the best team in the Western Conference. And since putting Gafford and DJJ in the starting lineup, the Mavs have the #1 defense and the #4 offense in the league. That is utterly astonishing. We beat the Clippers. Awesome, but expected. We beat the #1 seeded Thunder. I think most of us expected it, but the media didn't. Either way, HOLY SHIT, WE'RE BACK IN THE CONFERENCE FINALS!!! This is great, right? No matter what happens next, this has been awesome. Even if lose, everything is awesome. But then... we beat the heavily favored Wolves. The Dallas Mavericks are your Western Conference Champions and advance to the third NBA finals appearance in franchise history, and the first in the career of Luka Doncic.

TLDR, I know. I write this shit for me anyway. But I hope at least a couple of you actually did read all of that, because it is so easy to forget how hopeless and bleak things were just a few short months ago. I don't think any of us last year- even earlier this year- expected the Mavericks would be anywhere near the conference finals, let alone the NBA finals. I think most of us would have been pleased just to know we'd be back in the playoffs.

I don't think the biggest Mavs homer in the world, or even the biggest Kyrie Irving fan in the world, saw Kyrie being this great for the Mavs, or he and Luka being this great together. If Porzingis was the risk that didn't pay off, Kyrie was the much bigger risk that did pay off bigger than we ever imagined. And we all knew that Gafford and PJ would improve our defense. I don't think the most optimistic fan predicted that we would be the #1 defense in the league.

Seriously people, this isn't just unlikely. It's miraculous. And by that I mean, Luka Donic, Kyrie Irving and the rest of the Mavs are miraculous.

Bring on the Celtics. Fuck 'em. I don't care what the oddsmakers say. The 2024 Dallas Mavericks are the team of destiny.

[Scoobay]

Originally Posted by Thespiralgoeson

Melonhead has earned the eternal right to make playoff series threads. Gotta keep the good vibes going.

But man, I hope everyone left here takes a moment to appreciate how insane, how amazing, and- considering the shape the franchise was in just a year and a half ago- how utterly improbable it is that the Mavericks are going to the NBA finals.

I just wanna catalogue the incredible journey here.

ok i'm gonna start spreading rep again so i can rep this...

just as a reminder of some of the lowlights of the post championship doldrums were
1. not resigning tyson chandler
2. lamar odom
3. rajon rondo
4. chandler parsons
5. wesley matthews
6. failing to draft Giannis

i mean crap - what a fail for the twilight of dirk's career.

this has been an amazing run!