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[mavsluvr]

https://dcs.megaphone.fm/ESP6873849109.m...5be5a9affa

Lowe and McMahon podcast talking Wall and also talking Mavs...

Brief summary of the Mavs portion --

Zach and Tim McMahon discussed the Mavs for a short segment. 


They are a little more optimistic than most about the Mavs’ chances. Mavs are a really good team, but not yet contender status. 

The reason the Mavs weren’t a top-four seed last season was because they got hammered by COVID for the first three months. From February on, they had the league’s fifth-best record. 

They didn’t improve the roster much in the offseason, but they made a HUGE coaching change, which may or may not be for the better. Carlisle is one of the best x’s and o’s coaches in the NBA. Rick realized that it was time for a new voice — wrt Luka, and wrt the locker room in general, and decided that he would control the timing and direction of his departure, rather than being on the hot seat all season. 

Kidd has a LOT to prove. And Luka has something to prove. He has to show that he can win big even with an arguable downgrade in coaching, given it was a change that he was happy about. 

There are reasons for optimism. For one, KP is healthy going into the season. He was so bad defensively last season that even if he plays decently on that end of the floor, it will constitute a significant upgrade. 

Zach and Tim think the Mavs are closer to being a contender than people think, but that they aren’t there yet. It’s not outlandish to think they could reach the finals, but many, many things would have to break just right for that to happen. 

The pressure is on the front office to upgrade the team. Their timetable for reaching realistic contender status is probably two seasons. At that point, they will have a little more flexibility to make moves. The next important upcoming decisions are whether to extend DFS and JB. 

In case John Wall is on a listener's radar, it is hard to formulate a trade scenario with him involving any team in the league, and certainly not the Mavs. The Mavs will not trade KP for John Wall, and they shouldn’t.