What would you have done as GM that would have gotten you an A+ this off-season?

[DallasBasketball]

Apparently I don’t do “clever” well as IGT thought he offended me (he didn’t come close) and I made you think I was taking a shot at you (I wasn’t, you are always extremely kind to me).  

Here is something to ponder.  At the beginning of the last season, who were those 2-5 teams?  I would submit both LA teams and Philly and Brooklyn.  Milwaukee didn’t have Holiday yet and flamed out famously in the playoffs the season before.  Phoenix was a nice story, but no one imagined them getting past the big boys.

The year we won the championship, were we in the mythical top 2-5?  I would submit not.  But then LA imploded and OKC and Miami weren’t ready yet.  Sometimes you have the obvious winner and you don’t (win).  Sometimes the eventual winner catches some breaks and the unexpected happens.  

We were the fifth in the west and were just a mess much of the season.  Then when we finally got healthy, we just took nights off and lost to some of the worst teams in the league.  Despite all those nights off, we were 6th in Net Rating in the league from 3/1 on, just a little behind a Denver team that doesn’t have their PG right now.  That is what I mean by “close”.  And that is with internal dysfunction, JRich stinking things up, bad Maxi and bad KP.  Some here won’t be satisfied unless we add another top 10 NBA player, but what is the path?  If there isn’t a path, admit it and aim for lots of small improvements at the margins.  Brooklyn might win the next three championships, but injuries could keep them from winning any.  When you are as close as we are to that next rung up (whatever you call it), it is going to take great good fortune to win it all.  This is the Finley/Nash/Dirk era of Luka’s career.  That trio didn’t win a ring, but man it was fun to be a fan back then.

Milwaukee is a really good comparison. They resembled the 2011 Mavs in that they featured one superstar, and had knocked on the championship door once before, but were not ready. And for many playoff years in a row, their superstar looked like he could be figured out. Maybe they weren’t technically the best team in the east last year, but they have been consistent for a long time running.

If you can have a transcendent star and be consistent, then make a trade like Bledsoe for Jrue Holiday and make a couple heady acquisitions along the way, you are going to get your chance to knock again.

The West is SO tough. No one would have wanted the Clippers rd 1. Kawhi was a monster. Luka was a monster.

I think we are working toward that Milwaukee level of consistency. And if we can get in position to start knocking, then maybe we can see the path like when we acquired Tyson Chandler.

I always tell the story of me betting on the mavs to reach the finals in 2011 after we beat Miami in the thanksgiving weekend game. But it was in preseason when my friend and I started talking championship bc of Tyson Chandler. He was our Jrue acquisition. We had already been knocking. Jason Terry called it in 2009-10 saying, “we were 1.5 players away” and then got the tattoo.

Maybe 2011 Mavs should have been in that 2-5, maybe 2021 Milwaukee should have too, the margins on this stuff can be so thin. Experience is always an underrated building block as well. Then luck is a factor for everyone, good or bad.