(02-06-2025, 04:27 PM)Chicagojk Wrote: defense wins championships, but the majority of time we are relying on Kyrie, Klay and Spencer to chase around the elite guards. 

Maybe once Martin gets out of his body cast he could help there.

(02-06-2025, 04:11 PM)mvossman Wrote: The thesis was that Nico is not concerned about long term impact and is only concerned about the next two or three years.  If the news is true that he was going hard for KD (which surely would have cost our last remaining future assets) then that thesis looks legit.  That is a two year window move that leaves this franchise in shambles for many years after.

(02-06-2025, 05:26 PM)F Gump Wrote: I like Luka, but that style has NEVER been good enough. To be real, Harden was the same player with about the same everything, and same results -- Harden never got a title, and is no one anymore.

(02-06-2025, 05:26 PM)F Gump Wrote: I don't think there's anything amiss with the thesis of how Nico sees on-court window (ie it not being that long), just the claims that Nico sees himself as a short timer by choice. 

And I actually agree with Nico on the window to win being relatively short. The CBA forces constant turnover, and teams prospects don't necessarily last very long. That was Cubans stupid thinking in 2012. He wasnt smart enough to know that if you can win a title, get it now, not down the road, because tomorrow can be eroded or other teams can rise and get in the way. 

For example, look at this season, which started with BOS the strong favorite, and OKC and maybe DAL also on the cusp. But who saw any real threat from CLE, HOU, MEM? 

To speak to Luka, we have worked with an assumption that one day he will win a title. He started out way ahead, at 19. But the league has kinda passed him -- yes, the STATS are still flashy, but the efficiency and lack of defense are as bad as ever. We see him as the source of unstoppable offense, but in the Finals the Mavs lost because Luka's heliocentric offense was not unstoppable after all.

I like Luka, but that style has NEVER been good enough. To be real, Harden was the same player with about the same everything, and same results -- Harden never got a title, and is no one anymore.

(02-06-2025, 06:13 PM)mvossman Wrote: So much to disagree with here.

Cuban's failure was that he thought the solution was plan powder (which may have really just been an excuse to be cheap after he got his title) as opposed to accumulating assets.  

We have seen all of the teams that operate under this concept of small windows trying to build super teams as Nico appears to be trying here.  Since the dream team, they have all been failures and left those franchises in disastrous state.  

The teams that succeed have had long processes of building up roster/assets, and the ones who have been really good at have lasted several years.  The Mavs seemed to be on that path.  There would definitely been some concern with replacing Kyrie eventually, but with Luka combined with the quality of asset accumulation we had done the last two years there was still reason to hope.

And if the window is small, tell me how trading Luka for AD helps with that?  We got less talented, less continuity and less overall fit.  

But I probably disagree with your Luka take most of all.  The reason they lost that series is because Boston had significantly more talent (it also didn't help that Kyrie was terrible).  That Boston team was one of the most dominate in NBA history based on net rating.  But Dallas had closed the gap some this offseason, Boston has bigger age concerns and who knows what could happen when you have Luka.

(02-06-2025, 05:26 PM)F Gump Wrote: I don't think there's anything amiss with the thesis of how Nico sees on-court window (ie it not being that long), just the claims that Nico sees himself as a short timer by choice. 

And I actually agree with Nico on the window to win being relatively short. The CBA forces constant turnover, and teams prospects don't necessarily last very long. That was Cubans stupid thinking in 2012. He wasnt smart enough to know that if you can win a title, get it now, not down the road, because tomorrow can be eroded or other teams can rise and get in the way. 

For example, look at this season, which started with BOS the strong favorite, and OKC and maybe DAL also on the cusp. But who saw any real threat from CLE, HOU, MEM? 

To speak to Luka, we have worked with an assumption that one day he will win a title. He started out way ahead, at 19. But the league has kinda passed him -- yes, the STATS are still flashy, but the efficiency and lack of defense are as bad as ever. We see him as the source of unstoppable offense, but in the Finals the Mavs lost because Luka's heliocentric offense was not unstoppable after all.

I like Luka, but that style has NEVER been good enough. To be real, Harden was the same player with about the same everything, and same results -- Harden never got a title, and is no one anymore.

(02-06-2025, 02:59 PM)F Gump Wrote: 15

I think the thesis that Nico doesn't expect or plan to be here very long is a complete misread of what Nico said, and that misread is skewing the conversation into ideas that don't exist. 

The NBA  is a world where NO ONE has an extended shelf life in any particular job. BUT admitting that (which is all Nico did, for both himself and Kidd), isn't an expression of WANTING or even EXPECTING to leave. 

Nico took a big chance, no doubt. He put his neck on the line in this one. It has to make the Mavs better. But I don't get any sense he's wanting to be elsewhere, and think he's saying to himself, 'You all hate me now, but you'll thank me later.' And whether he's made the right call will determine his own future.

(02-06-2025, 12:18 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: Another Dereck Lively score (only not a center, obviously) might be the best case scenario at this point. I mean, it's not like the core of the team is old...

Oh, right.

(02-06-2025, 05:26 PM)F Gump Wrote: I don't think there's anything amiss with the thesis of how Nico sees on-court window (ie it not being that long), just the claims that Nico sees himself as a short timer by choice. 

And I actually agree with Nico on the window to win being relatively short. The CBA forces constant turnover, and teams prospects don't necessarily last very long. That was Cubans stupid thinking in 2012. He wasnt smart enough to know that if you can win a title, get it now, not down the road, because tomorrow can be eroded or other teams can rise and get in the way. 

For example, look at this season, which started with BOS the strong favorite, and OKC and maybe DAL also on the cusp. But who saw any real threat from CLE, HOU, MEM? 

To speak to Luka, we have worked with an assumption that one day he will win a title. He started out way ahead, at 19. But the league has kinda passed him -- yes, the STATS are still flashy, but the efficiency and lack of defense are as bad as ever. We see him as the source of unstoppable offense, but in the Finals the Mavs lost because Luka's heliocentric offense was not unstoppable after all.

I like Luka, but that style has NEVER been good enough. To be real, Harden was the same player with about the same everything, and same results -- Harden never got a title, and is no one anymore.

(02-06-2025, 11:32 PM)BolsDamols Wrote: Some people are actually putting that finals loss on Luka when he was the only one who could score and Kyrie laid a big fat egg. dafuq

(02-06-2025, 11:52 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: I agree with all of this. Every word. 

But, I still hate this. I know you're against cashing in with the mindset of going for draft capital as the primary goal, and I can see where you're coming from there, but...I can't shake the feeling that what they've done is the worst of the three choices in front of them. 

If they had chosen to continue trying to maximize this short window, but WITH Luka, I would have had the next window in the back of my mind. 

If they had really, really thought it best to get out of the Luka business before giving him that Supermax, I'd have been ok with that, but would've preferred a young piece or two, along with as much draft capital as they could carry, probably followed by selling Kyrie and Thompson. Lively, Gafford, PJW, Exum, Grimes, Hardy, O-Max, etc, is not a bad place to start a rebuild, if you have enough draft capital to aggressively search for gap filling talent in the near future. 

But, the road they chose...artificially imposing Kyrie's window by mirroring it with Davis, just because they were in the finals last year (which never would've happened had Luka not been a catalyst for this entire reboot in the first place)...I don't know. I mean, it's not like I think they'll be a bad team without Luka, exactly, but I just don't feel like there's really a way to win without that Luka-type piece, no matter how good the roster is. I get that Harrison thinks AD is that piece, and idk, maybe he's right. I know he's a heck of a player, but I just don't see it. 

Just seems like there's so little hope at a championship during that short window now, and before it felt like they were circling it, just needed a couple of things to break right. PLUS, it feels like there's little hope for them finding a way from this window to the next with any sort of efficiency due to emptying the coffers to build a team around Luka.

(02-07-2025, 12:26 AM)SleepingHero Wrote: Honestly my biggest conspiracy right now is that Nico and Kidd have been planning on trading Luka for months. This doesn't come out of the blue. I think Nico+Kidd were obviously tired of Luka. Nico's comments and his hit pieces in the media say so.

But going back, at the start of the year, Kidd radically transformed how this offense ran. He put Luka off ball the entire time. No longer did we spam spread PnR's. Sure Luka had his pet spain PnR but those were few and far between compared to last year. In fact, what Kidd replaced the PnR's with were dribble hand offs with the big man at the top of the key. More post ups. More paint touches. Looking back, it feels like Kidd changed his offense with a dominant big man in mind. It's almost like he wanted to prep this team and these guys to run a certain play style before they had the guy he really wanted.

I mean we see it when we put Gafford at the 3pt line and have Klay run around him, Gafford's defender flat out ignores him and is free to double Klay or whoever is coming off the dribble hand off (DHO). But imagine if you had, I don't know, lets say Anthony Davis in that scenario. You cannot leave AD alone in a DHO situation. He can absolutely put the ball on the floor in that situation and make teams pay.

What if Nico, and by extension Kidd, knew Luka would come into the season out of shape? What if they were ready to move on since October? What if they were planning this trade for AD for months in secrecy? As in, "if Luka does what we'll think he'll do, we cut bait". And that's exactly what happened.

I mean I don't find it a coincidence our coach changed how to run a Luka offense to a big man oriented one where the centers are creating opportunities and DHO's are used incessantly and  the very same season the team trades Luka.

Just had that thought.

(02-06-2025, 11:55 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: To be fair, Luka was BAD in the finals. And honestly, I was relatively disappointed with most of his playoff run. But, we all know it's because he was out of shape and injured. Which was the chicken and which was the egg is no longer a debate that's relevant to our day to day lives as Mavs fans, but even his more ardent critics knew that IF he ever figured out how to solve some of those issues the league wouldn't be able to stop him. 

I was critical of Luka's habits BECAUSE he's great and I wanted the world to SEE his greatness in a Mavs jersey, not because I wanted him gone.

(02-07-2025, 12:39 AM)cow Wrote: I'm sure the idea had been brewing for a while but trading Luka wouldn't be received as poorly if the return hadn't been pitiful.  They've basically shortened the championship window of this team two years beyond this one if you are being generous and that's if you can get Kyrie to resign.  And in that timespan, you've got a few up-and-coming teams that will probably figure it out (even if it feels like we have OKC's number).  This year seems like a throwaway with the team in perpetual injury hell.  I really hope this goes poorly and they trade AD before the next year's TDL so we can recoup some assets.