03-26-2021, 10:48 AM
(03-26-2021, 10:30 AM)dirkfansince1998 Wrote: My problem is not really the wasted 2nd round pick. More about the general approach and direction. Now we are back in the same old position. Mavs will try their luck on the free agent market and risk losing some key players.
I just don´t see a concept. The Mavs are going in 3-4 different directions at the same time. 4 rookies on the roster. No minutes to develop them. Went with a more defensive minded approach and added long and athletic defenders. Failed. Replaced them with two shooters that cannot guard a chair and it´s not like the Mavs actually targeted both players. Melli was a last minute throw in because the trade was falling apart. Messy trades are a Donnie and Mark special. Redick looks like the usual Mavs addition. Washed up vet that might be able to give the Mavs have few minutes.
The only constant that is always the number one goal: Capspace.
I had high hopes that the Mavs would actually avoid the free agency game this season and make a bigger move at the deadline but I should have known better. We have a 10+ years sample size of free agency failures and I just don´t think that this year will be any different.
I get the frustration with cap space - really, I do. Here are my thoughts on this, however:
1) I don't think it's interesting to turn EVERY situation that comes up into a conversation about the team's overall approach. I believe we all know where each other stands on that topic by now. It's helpful to get into it every once in awhile because we have a constant influx of new readers and contributors, but in my opinion, it's a drag for EVERY topic to devolve into the same argument.
2) This is the same as #1 only in reverse, but I don't think it's super fair to let one's opinion of the team's overall approach color their opinion on each specific move. It's hard not to do this, and I'm not saying I'm some model of objectivity - I'd probably do the same if I were on your side of the overall argument.
3) To me, the cap space thing isn't even about free agency, really. I mean, that's a huge part of it, but what I'm excited about, and why I'm not freaking out at every off-season or trade deadline lately, is the absence of bad money on the team. To me, that was where they went wrong in the Dirk era. So, for me, it's not about whether free agency has been successful in the past, and CERTAINLY not in any year before Luka was drafted. For me, step one is to keep the roster economics from spinning out of control, preventing them from doing what they need to do when the time comes. To a certain extent, I'm happy simply because this approach is different from the Dirk era approach.
An important distinction, at this point, is that when I say "the Dirk era" I mean the period between the day Nash and Dirk were brought in and the championship season, 2011. Blowing up that team was stupid, and everything (literally, everything) between 2012 and the day Luka was drafted is a separate era for me...I'll just call it "the dark ages" I guess.
Nothing during that dark ages era mattered. Nothing had a chance of being successful. Nothing was important. Every single thing they did was stupid. YOU might see similarities between THIS approach and THAT one, but for ME, judging this cleaner cap approach started on the day Luka was drafted, basically. I think it's potentially a BETTER way of building around a superstar than what they did for Dirk, but NOTHING "works" when you don't start with that superstar in the NBA. Now, I could ultimately be incorrect about this, but I don't really take "the last 10 years" seriously as any sort of evidence, if that makes sense.
I have more to say about this, but I'm realizing now that when I got to point #3 I did exactly what I argued against in point #1. Sorry about that.