Unfortunately, this isn’t about the movie, but for anyone interested in things going up in flames, you can take a good look at the current Dallas Mavericks. Who could have predicted this? Definitely not me less than 2 months ago. Dallas has gone from sneaky contender to embarrassing dumpster fire, and it isn’t pretty.
Most thought the addition of Kyrie Irving would bring a much-needed infusion of star power and take some weight off of Luka Doncic’s shoulders. While not wrong on paper, the experiment has gone poorly in practice. As of Saturday, Dallas is 3-7 when the two play together and have fallen out of play-in position in the Western conference. The tandem isn’t working out, and that isn’t unthinkable when you consider combining the league’s whiniest player with its most controversial.
Doncic has been a superstar since he entered the league, and was EuroLeague MVP as a teenager. He is undeniably an incredible player and can carry a team when he’s on. With that said, when he isn’t making his shots he takes out his anger on referees and the idea of defense. Instead of getting back on defense after a shot he felt he was fouled on, Doncic will routinely follow a ref and yell at them until the other team scores or he gets a technical foul. Luka has been among the league leaders in technical fouls since his sophomore season, and currently sits at 15 this year. When (not if) he sits 16, he will be suspended for one game and then every two techs will also yield a single-game suspension. Doncic has been criticized by himself, his coach, and the media for these issues but still struggles keeping his temper under control. Though not a technical, Doncic was fined $35,000 last week for making a “money gesture” at referees, suggesting they had money on the line against the Mavs.
That incident stemmed from a complete abomination of communication between referees and the Mavericks, though given this post is dumping on Dallas, I will choose to ignore the fact that the refs could have gone about things better.
Doncic complains as much as anybody in the league.
In the video shown below, the Warriors inbound the ball on the Mavs’ end of the court, with no Dallas players in sight. Golden State gets the easiest two points they will ever see. The final score? 127-125. Referees and coaches seems to have slightly different accounts of what happened, but the gist is that the call of possession was not properly told to Dallas, and different refs may have had different ideas of who had the ball. Dallas thought they were inbounding from their end, and had not gotten everybody over (there would have only been 2 players there anyway). Mavs’ owner Mark Cuban has protested the game, and results should come this week.
The play itself goes from about 0:17 to 0:25, with some analysis before and after. (Source: ESPN)
Even without referee intervention, Dallas has fallen apart since the addition of Irving (though not really his fault this time). The bench is limited, coach Jason Kidd is incompetent, and they are at risk of missing the playoffs completely. Houston Dallas, we have a problem.
This was another great post! It seems that the Mavericks only thought about having the best NBA players on their team rather than seeing who would actually work well together. In sports such as basketball, teamwork is essential for success, as evidenced by the fact that the Mavericks haven’t done well with Irving and Doncic playing together. One would hope that Doncic learns to control his temper otherwise Dallas is going to continue to perform poorly.
Once again, a consistent downfall of the NBA and many other pro sports teams. In theory, it makes sense that the best players would come together to make the best team. But it seems that the Mavericks (and many others unfortunately) are starting to discover that team chemistry is better than any one player. Hopefully they will begin to resolve this issue soon, and get back on track before its too late.