The season starts in a month! And with that in mind, we’re slowly going to turn our NBA brains back on and write more things. To get us started, I asked the staff what one thing they’re looking forward to about the season. And it doesn’t have to be centered on the Mavericks.
David: I am ecstatic to see what Cooper Flagg does this season. We all remember the jump Luka Doncic took in year two, and I think we expect a similar leap from Flagg. He may not get to the 28+ points night Doncic did, but his impact in other areas could make it feel like we are watching the same level of player. I want him playmaking, leaning in to his downhill physicality, defending the other team’s best player, and taking every shot the defense gives him without hesitation. There are a lot of questions around Dallas’ roster, but the only thing I care about is Flagg.
Tyler: After the somewhat outside-the-box hire of Dusty May, I’m really looking forward to seeing how different this team operates this season. I think my expectations are for a much more aesthetically pleasing brand of basketball. Whether or not that actually translates to wins, I have no earthly idea. But I will be awfully disappointed if they are a slog to watch like last season.
Michael: This season might be the first since the early 2000’s where I’m looking forward to being surprised by the team and the prospect of what it may become. Even in the Luka Doncic era, it felt a little different – perhaps because he crossed over with Dirk Nowitzki for a moment. Here we have an entirely new coaching staff, a front office of basketball professionals (per se) for the first time in two-and-a-half decades, and a core of young players waiting to show what they will become.
So for me, I’m looking forward to a truly new era in Mavs’ basketball taking shape right in front of us, and I’m excited to see what these players will bring and how they will develop beyond just this season.
Brent: The Mavs have made it clear by hiring Gina Miller that they care about communication and tacitly appear to acknowledge the massive failings of the previous era on that front. When you are needlessly adversarial with the media, as Harrison and Kidd often were, you come across as brutish or petulant or above being questioned.
And yet it is the media’s job to question you constantly it’s going to happen before and after every game. The Uriji/Schmitz/May media interaction-while admittedly still in its honeymoon phase-doesn’t have even a width of that old stink.
And setting aside writing about the Mavericks for just a moment, my appetite as a fan to consume those interviews goes way up when the tone is not downright
Joe: What I’m looking forward to Mavs-wise is if this team and franchise truly pick a direction and to see how they manage that with limited assets? Will they commit to the Cooper Flagg era and try and reload their utility belt of assets to start building around coop or are they trying to maximize this roster because of their lack of assets and limitations in roster building?
Non-Mavs-wise, I am looking forward to the season-long crap shoot that will be the 76ers. I already have tickets to the Presidents’ Day game here in Dallas. I’m so curious to see what this looks like. It’s like you’re taking the KD Nets and multiplying it by 10. The true super team with a floor lower than maybe any super team ever.
Sudarshan: I’m looking forward to a relatively drama-less season. Our past few offseasons have been so chaotic because we were run by toddlers high on a sugar rush. It’ll be nice to have a simple, yet unsuccessful season with adults at the helm now.
The 26-27 season is about clearing all major deadwood and setting the platform once more that we can build around Flagg, Morez, Larry, and even possibly Lively.
In broad league terms, I’m looking forward to seeing how the revised lottery rules change the way teams approach tanking, the play-in and contention. If it blows up in Adam Silver’s face, then all the better.
Matt M.: What fresh Hell awaits this team? As long as I get to watch Cooper Flagg take what I think will be a massive leap in Year 2, I can compartmentalize mostly anything, I think.
I don’t know if I’m as high on Morez Johnson and Sergio de Larrea as some on staff are, but I’m confident that Flagg and whatever incremental improvement in the roster has taken place will net Mavericks fans a watchable product, maybe even at times a team you could call “plucky” or heaven forbid “fun.” Remember fun?
For some reason I want to think Marcus Sasser could be something. If nothing else, he’ll definitely get a chance in Dallas to prove it.
League-wide I’m anxious to see if the basement dwellers are forced to become somewhat watchable as well. I’m eager to see if the changes to the lottery system will make more games watchable.
Bryan: I am pumped for Kyrie/Flagg hoops! With the moves made between the season’s end and the initial free agency surge, it’s clear that the Mavericks are banking on heavy (if staggered) doses of Kyrie and Cooper handling primary on-ball duties for the team.
There is still a trade or two just beyond the horizon with Gafford almost assuredly living out of a suitcase for the next 5 months in anticipation of his next NBA destination, but the team as constructed is weird. Fun weird. Oh, how I’ve missed fun weird. I openly embrace fun weird and welcome all its head-scratching quirks and eccentricities as opposed to the mud-tracking, joy-extinguishing swamp that was the last season and a half of Mavericks basketball.
Give me tall ball with shooting. Give me Kyrie/Sasser/Larry three-guard lineups. Give me Morez on the wing for a couple of plays.
Let’s get weird.
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