NBA Offseason Wrap Up: Out West, the Warriors reign supreme

TIER 5: A PASSING OF THE TORCH

13.  Dallas Mavericks

Key additions: Deandre Jordan (FA), Luka Doncic (draft)

Key losses: Seth Curry (FA), Yogi Ferrell (FA), Doug McDermott (FA), Nerlens Noel (FA) 

IN A TIER OF THEIR OWN, the Dallas Mavericks aren’t good enough to contend for the playoffs even under a 1-16 format but don’t have their own first round pick in 2019. They are below average. Newly acquired Deandre Jordan, Harrison Barnes, and Wesley Matthews will combine to make almost $66 million next season, never a recipe for success.

While Mark Cuban has resisted the urge to full-out tank as long as Dirk Nowitzki is around, grabbing Dennis Smith Jr. and Slovenian phenom Luka Doncic in back-to-back drafts at least gives Dallas a nice foundation moving forward.

Just three years removed from being the All-NBA first team’s center, Jordan has begun to show signs of age. While his rebounding hasn’t dropped off, he’s nowhere near the rim protector he used to be. His block rate (% of opponents FGA blocked when on the court) dropped from 5.4 percent in 2016 to 2.4 percent last year, and his PER, TS%, STL%, WS/48, and BPM were all down from 2017.

Part of this had to do with the lack of Chris Paul’s offensive wizardry, but the history of uber-athletic big men big men who were a shell of themselves by age 30 (Dwight Howard, Shawn Kemp, Antonio McDyess, to name a few) tells me that Jordan has likely entered the back nine of his career. After playing with Paul for so long, Deandre will have to get used to more difficult scoring opportunities. He’s only tied up for one-year so this was by no means a poor signing by the Mavs, but fans shouldn’t expect to see the 2016 version of Deandre Jordan walking out of the tunnel every night.

With Curry and Ferrell on the way out, Cuban was simply making more space in the backcourt for the future of the franchise: Doncic. Out of Slovenia, Doncic possesses a wide array of skills that make it hard to see him failing in the NBA. I expect him to be a solid player from day one and develop into a franchise calibre-guy.

Why do I have such high expectations for a 19-year-old kid from a foreign country when historically there’s been a high probability of an overseas lottery pick failing? There’s only one answer: Dirk.

Heading into year twenty-one, Dirk has literally done it all for this franchise. He could retire among the NBA’s top five all-time in scoring and top ten all-time in minutes played, games played, field goals, threes, and win shares. He was also the 2007 MVP, made thirteen All-Star teams, and twelve more All-NBA teams. The cherry on top? That 2011 playoff run that brought the Mavs their only championship in franchise history.

For two-and-a-half months of basketball on top of an 82-game season (at age 32 with no other All-Stars beside him), Dirk not only dragged Dallas to a championship, he was the best player in the world at a time where LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Dwyane Wade were near or in their primes, ultimately outplaying two of the three in the Finals. Those two-and-a-half months made Dirk immortal in not just the city of Dallas, but the annals of basketball history. He will wake up tomorrow and have an argument as the city of Dallas’ greatest athlete ever.

But at the end of the day, Dirk has always just been a tall, awkward kid from Germany drafted in a different century. He became one of the twenty best players ever through effortless dedication to his craft, an addiction to perfection, and a drive to win very few possess or ever develop. Doncic should spend every second of every day with Dirk and try to emulate his every move, down to his breathing patterns. I have no doubt Nowitzki will be a phenomenal mentor; perhaps he was waiting for the moment his successor arrived to walk away all along.

There is a real chance Dirk looks at Doncic and sees a lot of his younger self in the fellow Euro. If he chooses to walk away at the end of the year, he should be confident the Mavericks have their guy for the next decade plus. The mentorship is a match made in heaven; a true passing of the torch.

Mavericks projected record: 34-48

Mavericks chances of beating the Warriors in a series: 0.1 percent (about the same as walking into a bar in downtown Dallas in 1996 and convincing a group of Cowboys fans that a guy from Würzburg, Germany would be the city’s greatest athlete two decades later)