Summer League Game 1: 7pm CST on ESPN

[ballsrchr]

I think it's more complex than that. 

I don't buy the "Lindsey good - Nico bad" narrative, at least not completely. I think there's a lot of talent here, and it's silly to deny Harrison any credit for that. I think they're forming a salary structure that, to Cuban's recent point, is looking pretty sustainable for a reasonably long period of the near future. That's no easy feat right now, as we're seeing. I think it's pretty clear that the type of player the team covets changed when Harrison got the job, and while I don't think he's always gotten things right (see McGee and the attempt at ending my life with Kuzma), we all love PJW and Gafford, and whether some are willing to give him credit for those deals or not, neither would've been Mavericks during the Cuban/Nelson era. I'm confident about that. This team values athletic ability and two-way play like we wish they would've through the entire Dirk era, frankly. The one time they backed into a roster full of two way players, they won the championship. 

Heck, I stand by the O-Max/Hardy draft picks, even. Sometimes players don't figure things out, but those were both good swings, imho. And, he has not shown the slightest hesitation to move on once he's made his mind up that something isn't working. Does anyone miss Porzingis? Josh Green? I know some miss Grimes, but I feel like that's going to play out badly for him, not for the Mavs. I think he should've accepted their offer and settled into the role they wanted for him. We'll see. 

Harrison is going to be wrong as much as or maybe more often than he's right, but I swear we'd be saying that about any GM the Mavs had. If I was an Utah fan (ugh, Utah) I'd LOATHE Danny Ainge, who has wasted years there with almost nothing to show for it. That's just one example. The reality is that the job is so much more difficult than it looks to backseat drivers. 

I'm not trying to defend the guy, I swear. I'm just saying that if the GM is why someone is out on the Mavs, they're very unlikely to ever be happy following the Mavs. If the team is good, it will be fun for us. If they're not, then maybe he'll get fired. Or he won't. Either way, we're so powerless to do anything about it. If the fan backlash the team withstood over the last several months didn't do the trick, no craft we fans possess has any bearing on his future. I want the Mavs to be good, and have little hope for a GM change anytime soon, so I'll choose to hope Harrison performs better in his role than others expect.

I hate the cool, calm, voice of reason almost as much as I hate those guys on the freeway going the speed limit when I want to go 5 mph over the limit.

That's tongue in cheek, of course.  It's great to have somebody who can detail, explain, and has reasons for their posts.  I'm more of a winger, or as some may say, a wanker--which is...a one arm winger.

Keep up your great posts!  When you get responses--positive or negative--you are doing something right.