9:59pm (ET)
Kobe Bryant's biannual quest to embarrass the Mavericks in LA seems to have ended with 3:09 left in the first quarter. Kobe had already scored 13 while Dallas was missing its jump-shots, and the Lakers had jumped to a 20-13 lead. Dallas fans were taking a collective deep breath.
From that point, though, Kobe missed 4 straight shots and Dallas outscored LA 28-10 up to 5:50 left in the second. Then Smush Parker (the Lakers' second best player in uniform!) got tossed at 9:28. And then, 19 seconds later, Kwame Brown (second best of those remaining?) airballed a free throw.
I don't think it's a stretch to predict that this will turn ugly.
I love that the Mavericks' post defenders aren't afraid to use their fouls this game. The Lakers have gotten the ball near the basket a number of times, and the Dallas defenders have almost without exception forced them to shoot free throws.
Here's hoping this post doesn't need a revision before the night's done.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Saturday, March 10, 2007
The Mavs versus What Sports Fans Want
Oh boy. Eric Neel, if you were hoping to stir up a hornets’ nest of desperately defensive Mavericks fans, this was indeed the way to do it.
While I love my team, it's true that Dirk's not a Jordan or a Bird or a Dr. J. Dirk's game has far more substance than style, not unlike Duncan's (though surely Dirk has a little more style), whereas Jordan and Erving shared a captivating combination of athleticism and grace, and Jordan and Bird had an edge to their attitude. Dirk, on the other hand, comes across as simply hard-working and kind of normal.
It seems to me, though, that style isn't the real reason people like Neel don't care about the Mavericks. After all, Dirk's shot is beautiful, Terry plays with a kind of infectious glee, Howard explodes for big plays often enough to keep you guessing, and Stackhouse had enough attitude to knock Shaquille O'Neal into the stands during last year's finals.
I think, instead, that people don't care because they don't see in Dirk (and thus in the team) what they would call Greatness.
My impression is that there are two totally different reasons for caring about a team, depending on whether it's the home team or another city's team. For home-town fans, the point is participation in the process of growth and development of excellence; home-town fans revel in their team's rise from mediocrity to success, and emotional energy they invest early on leads to a great payoff when their team finally wins it all. This is why Dallas fans are ecstatic, if a little guarded, this season.
But if fans from another city are going to embrace a team, they're not interested in development or perserverance. If a fan looks outside of his own city for a team to love, he's looking for an association not with excellence, but with Greatness.
Neel actually uses the word great to describe the Mavericks, but I think he's really talking about what I would call excellence. Excellence is about success, but Greatness attains a kind of transcendence. Excellence is something you work for over time via trial and error, but Greatness is an eternal quality you either have or don't have. Fans want not just a winner, but a Winner.
There are some stipulations, of course. It's ok if your (lack of) team prevents you from winning a title (Lebron, early MJ), as long as you get one eventually. And it's ok to lose occasionally in the face of another instance of Greatness –– so for example, neither Magic nor Bird could win every title during the 80's, but that was ok because each was facing an equally unstoppable opponent.
And if Dirk had gone for 30/10 every game of the finals last year and had lost a close series (without the opening 2 7/8 game lead), my money says people outside of Dallas would see the Mavericks differently this year.
But to play like a mortal, as Dirk did, is virtually unforgiveable in the minds of most NBA fans. He had his chance to win the hearts of the nation, and he didn't do it. If Dirk (and Dallas) were Great, people assume, they would have won –– or at least not have blown a huge advantage to cough up the series. And if they aren't Great, then most people have other places they'd rather direct their devotion.
The notion of Greatness is why Wade is the darling of the NBA, because his finals performance had a sort of super-human quality that people want to grasp hold of. The notion of Greatness is also why Peyton Manning was so despised before he won the Super Bowl –– and I'll wager a degree of scorn will linger among many for the times he failed.
That leaves the Mavericks with a daunting task, if their fans are ever going to enjoy the adoration of the NBA. Last year's failure will not be quickly forgotten, even if Dallas takes the title this year. Having a chip on their shoulder might be a good way to win, but as long as people remember their failure, there's no mystique to capture the imagination, as Neel puts it. My guess is it will take at least back-to-back titles, maybe even three in five years for the stigma to pass.
In the NBA, it seems, Greatness is an all-or-nothing prospect, and apathy from fans is worth about the same as contempt.
While I love my team, it's true that Dirk's not a Jordan or a Bird or a Dr. J. Dirk's game has far more substance than style, not unlike Duncan's (though surely Dirk has a little more style), whereas Jordan and Erving shared a captivating combination of athleticism and grace, and Jordan and Bird had an edge to their attitude. Dirk, on the other hand, comes across as simply hard-working and kind of normal.
It seems to me, though, that style isn't the real reason people like Neel don't care about the Mavericks. After all, Dirk's shot is beautiful, Terry plays with a kind of infectious glee, Howard explodes for big plays often enough to keep you guessing, and Stackhouse had enough attitude to knock Shaquille O'Neal into the stands during last year's finals.
I think, instead, that people don't care because they don't see in Dirk (and thus in the team) what they would call Greatness.
My impression is that there are two totally different reasons for caring about a team, depending on whether it's the home team or another city's team. For home-town fans, the point is participation in the process of growth and development of excellence; home-town fans revel in their team's rise from mediocrity to success, and emotional energy they invest early on leads to a great payoff when their team finally wins it all. This is why Dallas fans are ecstatic, if a little guarded, this season.
But if fans from another city are going to embrace a team, they're not interested in development or perserverance. If a fan looks outside of his own city for a team to love, he's looking for an association not with excellence, but with Greatness.
Neel actually uses the word great to describe the Mavericks, but I think he's really talking about what I would call excellence. Excellence is about success, but Greatness attains a kind of transcendence. Excellence is something you work for over time via trial and error, but Greatness is an eternal quality you either have or don't have. Fans want not just a winner, but a Winner.
There are some stipulations, of course. It's ok if your (lack of) team prevents you from winning a title (Lebron, early MJ), as long as you get one eventually. And it's ok to lose occasionally in the face of another instance of Greatness –– so for example, neither Magic nor Bird could win every title during the 80's, but that was ok because each was facing an equally unstoppable opponent.
And if Dirk had gone for 30/10 every game of the finals last year and had lost a close series (without the opening 2 7/8 game lead), my money says people outside of Dallas would see the Mavericks differently this year.
But to play like a mortal, as Dirk did, is virtually unforgiveable in the minds of most NBA fans. He had his chance to win the hearts of the nation, and he didn't do it. If Dirk (and Dallas) were Great, people assume, they would have won –– or at least not have blown a huge advantage to cough up the series. And if they aren't Great, then most people have other places they'd rather direct their devotion.
The notion of Greatness is why Wade is the darling of the NBA, because his finals performance had a sort of super-human quality that people want to grasp hold of. The notion of Greatness is also why Peyton Manning was so despised before he won the Super Bowl –– and I'll wager a degree of scorn will linger among many for the times he failed.
That leaves the Mavericks with a daunting task, if their fans are ever going to enjoy the adoration of the NBA. Last year's failure will not be quickly forgotten, even if Dallas takes the title this year. Having a chip on their shoulder might be a good way to win, but as long as people remember their failure, there's no mystique to capture the imagination, as Neel puts it. My guess is it will take at least back-to-back titles, maybe even three in five years for the stigma to pass.
In the NBA, it seems, Greatness is an all-or-nothing prospect, and apathy from fans is worth about the same as contempt.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Just in case you missed it . . .
Espn.com cites the Elias Sports Bureau:
What remains, though, is something that's never been done, and that's pretty impressive even if it's only judged within NBA history.
All of which leads into Sunday's game at LA.
With the Mavericks playing so absurdly well, I can't help but think of Dec. 6, 2002, when Dallas showed up at LA with a 17-1 record and went into the fourth quarter with a 27-point lead before getting outscored 44-15 and losing by 2. LA hit 16 of 18 shots that quarter, and Dallas looked like they had forgotten how to play. It was something like the 24th straight loss at the Lakers for Dallas. In what had looked like a dream season, from that game on, I knew deep down that Dallas wasn't good enough to win the title.
It also reminds me of Dec. 20, 2005 at LA, when Kobe personally outscored dallas 62–61 in the first three quarters before sitting out the fourth quarter of the Lakers' blowout win. Dallas was 18-6 (75%) going into that game, and although it wasn't as crushing as the loss in 2002, it was still a rough one to sit through.
The Mavericks' title hopes don't quite hinge on a victory Sunday. However, I have a feeling Kobe (playing at home and televised nationally) is planning to make a statement, so maybe this would be a good time for Dallas to beat him to the punch.
The Mavericks made history on Tuesday night -- not just team history, not just NBA history, but major North American pro sports history. With their 102-89 victory over the Nets, the Mavericks became the first team in NBA history to earn 51 wins in a 56-game span within a single season.Just to be fair, that kind of a stretch isn't really realistic in baseball, where the best regular season team usually wins 100-105 games (61.7%–64.8%), whereas the NBA almost always has at least one team win 60 (73.2%). And in the NHL the top record of any given 82-game season is usually closer to 50 than to 60, largely because most teams end up with 10+ ties as well.
No team in the NHL or in Major League Baseball has done such a thing, either. (And in the NFL, no team has ever amassed 51 wins over any multiple-season stretch of 56 regular-season games.)
What remains, though, is something that's never been done, and that's pretty impressive even if it's only judged within NBA history.
All of which leads into Sunday's game at LA.
With the Mavericks playing so absurdly well, I can't help but think of Dec. 6, 2002, when Dallas showed up at LA with a 17-1 record and went into the fourth quarter with a 27-point lead before getting outscored 44-15 and losing by 2. LA hit 16 of 18 shots that quarter, and Dallas looked like they had forgotten how to play. It was something like the 24th straight loss at the Lakers for Dallas. In what had looked like a dream season, from that game on, I knew deep down that Dallas wasn't good enough to win the title.
It also reminds me of Dec. 20, 2005 at LA, when Kobe personally outscored dallas 62–61 in the first three quarters before sitting out the fourth quarter of the Lakers' blowout win. Dallas was 18-6 (75%) going into that game, and although it wasn't as crushing as the loss in 2002, it was still a rough one to sit through.
The Mavericks' title hopes don't quite hinge on a victory Sunday. However, I have a feeling Kobe (playing at home and televised nationally) is planning to make a statement, so maybe this would be a good time for Dallas to beat him to the punch.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
GM for the Ages
Maybe y'all saw the story about how Kevin McHale was ranked the #1 general manager in professional sports this week by Forbes magazine, who rated GMs according to improvement in their teams' records and certain payroll factors.
Problem is, Kevin McHale is widely recognized as one of the worst GMs in the league, particularly in light of an under-the-table deal he tried to make a few years ago that got his franchise penalized three consecutive first-round picks, a move which certainly hasn't helped the Timberwolves put new talent on the court to take advantage of Kevin Garnett's prime.
Folks in the sports media are understandably having quite a laugh at this one.
So let's contrast McHale with, say, Donnie Nelson (#40 out of 98 on the Forbes list), who has worked in various roles for Dallas since 1998 including the past four years as President of Basketball Operations. Under his watch (here I'll oversimplify several complex trades), Dallas got Dirk for Robert Traylor, got Jason Terry for Raef LaFrentz, got Jerry Stackhouse and Devin Harris for an aging Nick Van Exel, drafted Josh Howard with the 29th pick, and signed Desagana Diop and Erick Dampier as free agents.
Add to that the fact that they got Van Exel and LaFrentz for Juwan Howard and Tim Hardaway (who almost immediately retired), and that means Nelson (if I've got my facts correct) helped Dallas acquire their top 7 players from (basically) Robert Traylor, Juwan Howard, and a late-first-round draft pick.
So Forbes picked a set of numbers and allowed them to overrule common sense. I wonder what Hollinger would say about that?
(By the way, db.com took that same gibe at Hollinger today too, but since I wrote this post yesterday before I read db, I'm not plagiarizing anyone.)
Problem is, Kevin McHale is widely recognized as one of the worst GMs in the league, particularly in light of an under-the-table deal he tried to make a few years ago that got his franchise penalized three consecutive first-round picks, a move which certainly hasn't helped the Timberwolves put new talent on the court to take advantage of Kevin Garnett's prime.
Folks in the sports media are understandably having quite a laugh at this one.
So let's contrast McHale with, say, Donnie Nelson (#40 out of 98 on the Forbes list), who has worked in various roles for Dallas since 1998 including the past four years as President of Basketball Operations. Under his watch (here I'll oversimplify several complex trades), Dallas got Dirk for Robert Traylor, got Jason Terry for Raef LaFrentz, got Jerry Stackhouse and Devin Harris for an aging Nick Van Exel, drafted Josh Howard with the 29th pick, and signed Desagana Diop and Erick Dampier as free agents.
Add to that the fact that they got Van Exel and LaFrentz for Juwan Howard and Tim Hardaway (who almost immediately retired), and that means Nelson (if I've got my facts correct) helped Dallas acquire their top 7 players from (basically) Robert Traylor, Juwan Howard, and a late-first-round draft pick.
So Forbes picked a set of numbers and allowed them to overrule common sense. I wonder what Hollinger would say about that?
(By the way, db.com took that same gibe at Hollinger today too, but since I wrote this post yesterday before I read db, I'm not plagiarizing anyone.)
Monday, March 5, 2007
Can't crack the rankings
I'm kind of bitter this morning, because I submitted a comment that I thought Hollinger would practically have to post on his rankings:
I wouldn't mind so much (after all, lots of people submit these things), except for what he posted instead:
I don't get it.
Also pretty silly was the comment they posted for the Spurs today:
I wouldn't mind so much (after all, lots of people submit these things), except for what he posted instead:
Heather (Austin)It's my impression that pretty much every day they post the most inane, generic comment they can find, usually having nothing specific to do with the Mavericks' most recent game.
The Mavs can match any teams' style of play. It doesn't matter if it's a solid defensive struggle or a run and gun offensive game. The Mavs can play any style of basketball and still prevail.
I don't get it.
Also pretty silly was the comment they posted for the Spurs today:
Jerry (Phoenix)It's true, of course, that the playoffs are a whole new game, and no self-respecting former championship team is going to give up on championship hopes. But considering that the Mavericks are (1) toying with becoming one of the two or three best teams in NBA history and (2) showing signs only of improvement, I don't think the Spurs are in a position to concede or not concede much of anything just because they've finally strung together a decent winning streak and a had few blow-outs.
The Spurs are playing their best ball and will only continue to improve as they head into the playoffs. Watch out Mavs the Spurs aren't ready to concede the best team in Texas title yet.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Peaking early and middle . . . how about late?
Kind of quaint: glancing through an SI from January 29, they had this to say in their "Who's Hot" feature about Phoenix's play at the time:
“The sizzling Suns had won 29 of 31 –– that's 29 of 31––after thrashing the T-Wolves with a 46-point third quarter on Sunday.”
In case anyone has lost count, Dallas has now won 35 of 37.
Also, TNT pointed out something that's pretty encouraging during the Cavs game Thursday night. Here is Dallas' record by month so far this season:
Or they could just not lose any more games at all, in which case I don't guess anyone would care about the pattern all that much.
Either way, the constantly improving record bodes very well –– and suggests that people who worried about peaking too soon didn't anticipate how good the Mavericks could get. Of course, there's plenty of season left, and Dallas has some tough games in the next couple of weeks.
All in all, though, the constant improvement suggests that this year will be different than the Mavericks' break-out season in 2002-03. That year, they started out with a team-record 14 straight wins and had a gaudy record for most of the year. I don't have the exact figures, but in early March of 2003, I sent an email to a friend (JKnott) noting that Dallas' road winning percentage was 70%, which was equal to the next best team's (San Antonio's) overall winning percentage. (For what it's worth, right now Dallas' road winning percentage is 78%, which is better than any other team's overall record, and only a half game behind the next best home winning percentage [Phoenix's] in the league.)
Unfortunately, despite a great winning percentage––and a great point differential––early on, the '02–'03 team trailed off toward the end of the season and somehow made a team-record 60 wins feel extremely disappointing.
That year no one in the league really had much respect for the (Nash-led) Mavericks, and for good reasons––they were coached by Don Nelson, they were soft (except for Nick Van Exel), they lacked a presence at center (remember Raef LaFrentz?), they relied heavily on jump-shooting, and they didn't defend anyone. Sure, in the playoffs they hung 84 first-half points on Sacramento one game and then took San Antonio to six games in the western conference finals even though Dirk sat out the last two with an injured ankle. But they didn't really seem to have the goods, and we all feared constantly when the bottom would fall out.
This season that's still a possibility, but the feel now is quite different.
Incidentally, the cover story from that January 29 Sports Illustrated was about how Peyton Manning finally got his team to the Super Bowl. After that cover he got them the trophy as well. As it turns out, things change, teams improve, and some superstars just need time to learn how to get the job done.
“The sizzling Suns had won 29 of 31 –– that's 29 of 31––after thrashing the T-Wolves with a 46-point third quarter on Sunday.”
In case anyone has lost count, Dallas has now won 35 of 37.
Also, TNT pointed out something that's pretty encouraging during the Cavs game Thursday night. Here is Dallas' record by month so far this season:
- November: 11–4 (7l.l%)
- December: 13–3 (81.3%)
- January: 14–2 (87.5%)
- February: 10–0 (100%)
Or they could just not lose any more games at all, in which case I don't guess anyone would care about the pattern all that much.
Either way, the constantly improving record bodes very well –– and suggests that people who worried about peaking too soon didn't anticipate how good the Mavericks could get. Of course, there's plenty of season left, and Dallas has some tough games in the next couple of weeks.
All in all, though, the constant improvement suggests that this year will be different than the Mavericks' break-out season in 2002-03. That year, they started out with a team-record 14 straight wins and had a gaudy record for most of the year. I don't have the exact figures, but in early March of 2003, I sent an email to a friend (JKnott) noting that Dallas' road winning percentage was 70%, which was equal to the next best team's (San Antonio's) overall winning percentage. (For what it's worth, right now Dallas' road winning percentage is 78%, which is better than any other team's overall record, and only a half game behind the next best home winning percentage [Phoenix's] in the league.)
Unfortunately, despite a great winning percentage––and a great point differential––early on, the '02–'03 team trailed off toward the end of the season and somehow made a team-record 60 wins feel extremely disappointing.
That year no one in the league really had much respect for the (Nash-led) Mavericks, and for good reasons––they were coached by Don Nelson, they were soft (except for Nick Van Exel), they lacked a presence at center (remember Raef LaFrentz?), they relied heavily on jump-shooting, and they didn't defend anyone. Sure, in the playoffs they hung 84 first-half points on Sacramento one game and then took San Antonio to six games in the western conference finals even though Dirk sat out the last two with an injured ankle. But they didn't really seem to have the goods, and we all feared constantly when the bottom would fall out.
This season that's still a possibility, but the feel now is quite different.
Incidentally, the cover story from that January 29 Sports Illustrated was about how Peyton Manning finally got his team to the Super Bowl. After that cover he got them the trophy as well. As it turns out, things change, teams improve, and some superstars just need time to learn how to get the job done.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Neurotic
Marc Stein said this about the Dallas-Cleveland game, a comment that is too true (at least of me):
But don't worry –– Stein still takes Dirk as his MVP.
James almost single-handedly derailed a juggernaut that freaks out its fans if it doesn't win in a walk.The game included Lebron making what I would describe as the best game dunk I've ever seen. (My brother thinks I need some perspective, but I'm not sure.)
But don't worry –– Stein still takes Dirk as his MVP.
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