Category: Dallas Mavericks (Page 1 of 7)

Personal Foul

There’s nothing more to be said about what Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison did late Saturday night. The shocking and inexplicable trade of Luka Doncic to the Lakers is a demoralizing deal for the team that might take two decades to overcome, and a sucker-gut-punch to all Mavs fans that might not ever go away.

It is foul. And it feels more personal than I ever imagined it could.

I understand the concerns about his conditioning. I get the problems with his inattention to defense. I am continuously frustrated by Luka’s immaturity with referees. But he is by far–going away! indisputable!– the most exciting-must-see-thrilling-can’t-miss superstar in the NBA. “Luka Magic” is a thing, it’s real! Luka makes you tune into a road game against the Raptors on a Tuesday night in November because you know you’re going to see something you’ve never seen before. Just about every night. Luka’s specialty is taking your breath away. These thirteen highlights in the clutch are just a very small sample.

Luka is not even 26-years-old, he’s been All-NBA every season except one, and he was NBA Rookie of the Year that season. He gets league MVP votes every year. He averaged 40 minutes per game in 92 games last season, including the playoffs, which culminated with the NBA Finals. He’s already broken several of Magic Johnson’s and Michael Jordan’s all-time scoring records, and he’s posted more triple-doubles than both Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Bird. If Luka wants to just jog up and down the floor with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth the first half of the season, you let him! He’s a global sensation, a once-in-a-generation superstar. And, again, he’s just about to turn 26. Was there no thought given to patiently allowing him to grow and mature, to realize the value to his own career and the good fortunes of his team in proper conditioning and getting back on D? And while he’s maturing, isn’t it okay to keep winning playoff series and maybe capture a title or two?

Here are 100 Luka highlights. Twenty minutes of Luka Magic. The most exciting player in the NBA. No-look passes, between-the-legs dribbles, and behind-the-back dimes. One-handed, off-balance, corner fadeaway swishes and mind-blowing half-court heaves. Tons of crazy threes. Buzzer-beaters. Game-winners. Series clinchers. And, most of the time, that tremendous smile. And, sometimes, that menacing snarl.

It’s the worst trade in NBA history. Unprecedented. I am as stunned as I’ve ever been in my life, and I have no hope of this ever making any sense. Nico traded away the young dynamic superstar face of the franchise for Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and one first-round draft pick in 2029. Nico did not contact any other teams. He only spoke to the Lakers. And he started the conversation way back on January 7.

For perspective, in 2019, OKC traded Paul George (29) to the Clippers and received five first-round picks and two players. In 2022, the Jazz traded Rudy Gobert (30) to Minnesota for four 1st round picks and five players. In 2023, the Nets traded Kevin Durant (34) to Phoenix for four 1st round picks and three players. And earlier this season, the Nets sent Mikel Bridges (28) to the Knicks for five 1st round picks and three players. Saturday night, Nico gave Luka to the Lakers for Davis (32) and Christie and one pick. It boggles the mind. One total draft pick. And Davis will probably be finished playing before they can use it!

Utah and the Nets each have eleven 1st round picks in the next five years. You think they might have given up at least half of them for a shot at Luka? The other GMs in the NBA had no idea Luka was on the block. You think Memphis would consider giving up Jaren Jackson? You think the Cavs might have been tempted to part ways with Evan Mobley? Could you have pried Giannis away from Milwaukee? We’ll never know. Nico didn’t even ask.

Here is an excellent piece by Jamey Newberg that perfectly captures both the fan’s side of the shock and the lingering nauseating pit in my gut and the detailed point-by-point case for this being the most awful trade in the history of sports. He’s so good. I want Jamey to write my sermons! And you must read this article by SI’s Michael Rosenberg about how you must have a superstar to win championships in the NBA and how difficult they are to handle and how the Mavericks royally messed it up. And, while I am on the record as staunchly opposed to emojis, you need to see Dirk’s immediate response to the news late Saturday night.

I watched a little bit of the Lakers press conference today introducing Luka as the newest member of the team. He talked about the shock of the trade. He talked about the tears he shed when he got the news from his agent (neither Nico nor Kidd made the call). I remembered that Luka was two weeks away from closing on his new house in Dallas; his agent told the Dallas Morning News Sunday that Luka had fully expected to spend his entire career in Dallas. Luka was polite and said all the right things about playing in LA. He posed for pictures with his new purple and gold Lakers #77 jersey. He hugged his new GM, his new coach, and a couple of his new teammates. It was very much like watching your girlfriend get married to your sworn enemy.

And getting Anthony Davis and a 2029 1st round pick in return.

Peace,

Allan

Coreology

The Mavericks’ incredible playoff run came to a brutal close in Boston last night, but it doesn’t take away from what was one of the top three or four seasons in Dallas basketball history. Getting to the NBA Finals as a #5 seed is accomplishment enough. Watching the Mavs breeze through the first three rounds of the playoffs reminded me of the 1987-88 team that came out of nowhere to take the Showtime Lakers of Kareem and Magic to a seventh game in the Western Conference Finals. That’s how much fun this was. The whole thing was delightfully shocking. It ended last night against an historically dominant Celtics team but, while it stings today, it doesn’t diminish what the Mavs did, where they are, and where they’re going.

The Mavericks have the plan and they have most of the pieces. They have arguably the best player on the planet, who is only 25 and determined to do whatever it takes to win a title. Like Dirk before him, Luka’s defense and details will only get better. They have the twin towers of Lively and Gafford flying all over both rims. They have a surprisingly mature Kyrie Irving who, most nights, can create and finish like nobody else and is becoming a legitimate leader in the locker room. They have a true scoring forward in P.J. Washington. They have hustling role players like Jones and Green and Maxi. They need a little more time together and a little more experience. Maybe one more lock-down defensive forward and one more true threat from three. The Mavs will be the favorites to come out of the West again next year, along with Denver and OKC.

You don’t just come out of nowhere and win a championship. What the Texas Rangers did last year almost never happens. The Mavs are in the middle of the journey. And it’s heading in a really fun direction.

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“We now see young evangelicals walking away from evangelicalism not because they do not believe what the church teaches, but because they believe the church does not believe what the church teaches.” ~Russell Moore, Why the Church is Losing the Next Generation, 2021

My friend Josh Ross, the Lead Minister at the Sycamore View Church in Memphis, has published a little book on how to navigate an election season without losing our Christian witness. The book is titled Coreology and outlines six core principles to keep followers of our Lord Jesus from blowing our credibility with a watching world. As Josh writes in the introduction, “Much of life is how we react to people, situations, and circumstances; but if one’s faith is only a reactionary faith, maturity and growth can only go so far. A vibrant faith is a faith that prepares through practices, disciplines, intentionality, and strategic action.”

Josh believes it is “extremely difficult, if not impossible, to shine the light of Christ in places we have cancelled, neglected, or view as the enemy.” In other words, as I stated in a recent sermon, “If we hate them, we’ll never save them.” Josh’s motivation for writing Coreology are similar to mine for reading it and sharing it with you here. As he outlines near the end of his introduction:

~ I don’t want us to confuse where our overall allegiance lies
~ I don’t want us to spend valuable energy fighting the wrong fights
~ I don’t want us to create enemies with people who are not enemies of God
~ I don’t want us to lose–or blow–our witness
~ I don’t want our hearts to become hard or our love to grow cold

Josh’s plea is that we “root our motives, intentions, passions, and desires in what it means to be Kingdom people above all things.”

Some of us have swallowed a horrific lie that the salvation of the United States somehow depends on electing the right politicians. We’re following, supporting, and defending government officials and candidates who are telling us the preservation of the Church depends on the platform of a certain party. Many of us are campaigning and picketing, screaming and yelling, insulting and fighting right alongside everyone else for a particular party or candidate, all of which is decidedly un-Christian behavior.

We are a Kingdom people. We have a King, one King, and we don’t divide our loyalties with any other. We have a polis, a community, brought together across all national boundaries and language barriers and culture differences as one Body of Christ. We are guided by the Kingdom’s politics, the rules our King sets forth to govern how we get along with one another, how we treat others, and how we accomplish his will for the world he loves. Those politics are not based on power, control, wealth, division, and violence; they are eternally grounded in love and grace, sacrifice and service, unity and submission and mercy. The kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of our Lord are two completely different things and their politics are totally incompatible.

That brings us back to Josh’s book.

We’re going to use this space over the next several days to explore all six of Josh’s principles:

~ I will daily confess that Jesus is the Lord of my life and nothing else is
~ I will create and honor regular spiritual practices that remind me of my devotion to Jesus
~ I will resist allowing any media outlet to become the primary way I think about culture and the world
~ I will strive to become a peacemaker
~ I will practice hospitality as a way to learn, grow, and invest in other people
~ I will choose to regularly serve others

We’ll carefully summarize Josh’s thoughts as outlined in his book and then share some of our own.

Until then, this quote from the book’s introduction which I, too, have used in several places since it was first written in 2020:

“When Christians–regardless of political leanings–behave like jerks and justify our behavior at all costs because of our ideological convictions, we bear false witness to Jesus Christ.” ~ Eugene Cho, Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk, 2020

Peace,

Allan

Bad Day to Be a Tree

I was sitting at their kitchen table early Saturday morning, drinking my Diet Dr Pepper and reading about the Mavericks’ Game Four blowout, when my son-in-law Collin came around the corner and proclaimed, “It’s a bad day to be a tree!”

Carrie-Anne and I were visiting Carley and Collin at their home in Flower Mound as part of a longer trip to see my parents in East Texas. My three siblings and our spouses all met up in Liberty City Friday to surprise our folks with a barbecue lunch to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. The mini-vacation turned into a work trip when, three weeks ago, the incessant rains and windstorms in DFW took out a massive tree cluster in Carley and Collin’s back yard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were five trees growing out of one massive stump in the corner of their yard where their property meets their neighbors’. Each of the trees had been growing since the early ’80s and were between 30-40 feet tall. The saturated ground finally turned them loose, destroying three fence posts and two sections of fence panel and ripping out a main sprinkler system line. One of the trees landed in the neighbors yard, one took out another fence post and two more panels, two fell into their massive Magnolia tree, and one rested against the corner of their house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Collin and I took it all down and out on Saturday with a 14-inch chainsaw and a machete. We only suffered two “mishaps” and one near-death experience. The scariest part was getting on and off their roof with only a six-foot step ladder. The fun part was bonding together over our shared tree-annihilating prowess. The longest part was the clean-up. Carrie-Anne and Carley joined us to haul every bit of it to the front curb where the City of Flower Mound assures us it’ll be picked up soon.

Following a brief recovery and some cold showers, we ate a wonderful dinner together at Mi Cocina at The Star in Frisco and then took in the RoughRiders game at the Frisco ballpark. The RoughRiders were hosting the Amarillo Sod Poodles, so C-A and I embraced our mixed loyalties and enjoyed the whole experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were especially blessed to worship with Collin and Carley at their church in Flower Mound Sunday morning before they treated me to my favorite Father’s Day lunch: the Buffalo chicken tenders at Cheddar’s.

It was a beautiful weekend all the way around. Fabulous. For everybody except that tree.

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If I were still making predictions about the NBA Finals, I’d say something about how the Celtics don’t have any pressure on them tonight in Game Five. Sure, the Mavs exploded Friday and destroyed Boston in Dallas, finally looking like the team that breezed through the first three rounds. Yes, Luka set the tone by refusing to complain to the refs and by embracing his defensive responsibilities and the rest of the team followed. Absolutely, it looks like the Mavs have finally figured it out. But it’s too late. Dallas can’t win four straight. Jayson Tatum admitted as much yesterday, saying something like, “It would be nice to close this out at home, but we don’t have to win Monday. Monday is not a must win. We only have to win one of the next three. There’s no pressure on us.”

Okay. There’s no pressure on either team tonight. Boston is expected to win to complete the “Gentlemen’s Sweep,” and Dallas is expected to lose the series, if not tonight, then certainly on Thursday.

But what if the Mavericks win a close one tonight? It’s possible, especially if Porzingas is not out there for the Celtics. Everything is clicking now for Dallas in their last five quarters. Kyrie has found his shot. Gafford and Lively have found the rim. Luka is not messing around. There’s an energy now they were really lacking in the first two-and-a-half games. What if they win tonight?

Now, it’s 3-2 and the series shifts back to Dallas and ALL the pressure is on Boston. The Celtics CAN’T lose Game Six because that would force a Game Seven and NOBODY wants a Game Seven because anything can happen in a Game Seven. If this thing comes back to Dallas, who is the pressure on? Not Dallas!

If I were still making predictions, I’d pick the Celtics in a tight one tonight to win their record 18th NBA championship. But if Dallas wins tonight, nobody’s trusting anybody’s predictions anymore.

Go Mavs.

Allan

Mavs Taking Big D to Boston

The NBA Finals begin tonight in Boston and the pick here is Dallas in six games over the Celtics. I know this is Boston’s second trip to the Finals in three years and the Mavs’ first appearance since they won it all back in 2011. I know the Mavericks have that one lone championship compared to the 17 banners that are hanging in the Boston Garden. I know the Celtics finished the regular season with the NBA’s top record and the Mavs squeaked in as a number five seed. Boston has home court advantage and they are the favorite. But…

The Celtics will be powerless against the Dallas D.

Luka and Kyrie will get their points. Duh. Boston sports fans are notoriously some of the worst in the world, right up there with Philly. They’re going to be rabid and profane, cursing and slurring and going non-stop to get under Luka’s skin and to rattle Kyrie. What they might not know is that the Mavs’ superstar guards absolutely thrive in that kind of atmosphere. Being heckled and booed brings out the best in those two. Never mind that Luka and Doncic are two of the most cold-blooded closeout killers in NBA history. Luka will average 30 points in this series and Kyrie more than 25. And they will silence that Boston crowd with long-distance threes and left-handed reverse layups all night long.

Maxi Kleber is healthy again and will stretch the floor with a few clutch threes. Hardy has grown in confidence and feel for the game throughout these playoffs and provides important work in the offensive paint. P.J. has become the emotional catalyst for the Mavs, a fierce competitor who wins every battle for a 50-50 ball. And Kidd’s pulling all the right strings.

But the main reason I like Dallas is their Big D. I know what Tyson Chandler did for the Mavs to help win it all in 2011. But the Mavericks have never had a couple of rim-rockers like Lively and Gafford. Never. They defend the rim like no other team–Dallas has more blocked shots through three rounds of the playoffs than all the other playoff teams combined. And the guards can lob a pass from anywhere on the floor and Lively or Gafford will get it and cram it home with authority. I know how talented those Boston guards are. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are skilled scorers and they have their own chips on their shoulders and plenty to prove. But they’re going to have to do it from outside. The paint will be closed to Boston this whole series. The rebounding edge belongs to the Mavs. And if the outside shots aren’t falling for the Celtics, Dallas could very well run away with it.

Here’s a hype video to get you ready for Game One tonight. The images in this video are compelling, but with Kermit the Frog as narrator, it’s not quite as satisfying as it could be.

Go Mavs.

Allan

A Matter of Relevance

The number of times each professional team in Dallas has played in a conference/league championship game/series since 1995:

Dallas Stars – 7
Dallas Mavericks – 5
Texas Rangers – 3
Dallas Cowboys – 0

They Need Each Other

If you had told me ten months ago that Kyrie Irving would be the mentor and role model I would want influencing Luka Doncic, I would have assumed you know absolutely nothing about the Dallas Mavericks or basketball in general.

Today, I would agree with you. We are living in an upside-down world, my friends.

With the little Mavericks headed to the NBA Finals after demolishing the Timberwolves in the Twin Cities, it seems to me that we’re watching a fluky, out-of-nowhere, miracle explosion of unexpected chemistry and talent. The Mavericks didn’t even make the playoffs last year. They were 26-23 on February 23. That’s one of the things that makes this so fun. Dallas has dispatched the 51-win Clippers, the top-seeded 57-win Thunder, and the second-seeded 56-win Wolves to advance to the NBA’s biggest stage. And I believe the foundation and the driving force behind the surprising success is that Luka and Kyrie need each other. They really need each other.

Every conversation about the best player in the NBA includes Luka somewhere in the first two sentences. He’s a deadly scorer, a triple-double machine, and a cold-blooded competitor. He’s well on his way to becoming a top-three guy in every NBA all-time offensive category. He’s going to give you several jaw-dropping shots every night. But he’s sometimes very hard to root for. No other player in my memory spends so much time after every single shot, every single trip down the floor, complaining to the referees. Griping. Pleading. Rolling his eyes. Racking up technical fouls. Luka, you’re maybe the best player on the planet! Please, get back and play defense! I’m not a fan of his on-court vocabulary. Some words are super easy to lip-read and those are the ones Doncic typically chooses. The way he lashed out at Rudy Gobert after his game-winning three in Game Two, the way he curses at opponents’ fans who are trying to get under his skin — he might wind up being a better player than Dirk, but Luka will never be the humble, gentlemanly, beloved Hall of Famer from Wurzburg who spoiled us so. And maybe he doesn’t have to be. Maybe it’s okay to bask in Luka’s brilliance and marvel at his talent and leave it at that.

Kyrie’s issues are well documented. He’s been his own worst enemy with his crazy flat earth theories and anti-vaccine conspiracies and anti-Semitic videos and selfish attitude. He’s been the opposite of a team player. He’s blown up several locker rooms and destroyed some pretty decent team mojo over the years. When the Mavs traded for Kyrie and got him at a bargain basement price because nobody else wanted him, I decried it as the last straw in Mark Cuban’s litany of bad basketball moves. You’re going to ruin this generational talent in Luka by pairing him with Irving. Both these guys operate as point guards. Both of them create their own openings and shots. Both of them are scorers first. And Kyrie’s attitude is going to rub off and make Doncic worse than he already is. This whole thing is going to blow up, the Mavs will miss the playoffs, Luka will want out, and it’s over.

Seems like a long time ago.

How in the world is this happening?

I think Luka and Kyrie need each other.

Luka needed an older guy on the team with just as much talent as his. Someone he could respect, someone he could look to, someone he could relate to as an equal, a peer in ability and drive. Luka needs somebody to give him advice, to calm his down, to remind him of big picture objectives, to mentor him. But that somebody had to be a player he’d listen to. Someone just as good as him.

Kyrie needed a younger guy to mentor. He needed someone who valued his experience and his talent and would listen to him, make him feel like the player-coach he thinks he is. He needs to feel important, like he’s contributing to something bigger than himself, like he’s passing something on that matters. Kyrie would only give of himself in that way to someone he could respect as an equal in skill and competitive drive. He wouldn’t waste any of that on someone who wouldn’t appreciate it or be able to duplicate it. It has to be someone just as good as him.

Luka and Kyrie need each other. Once they figured that out, they’ve put the Mavericks on their shoulders and turned them into the best team in the NBA.

They don’t defer to one another like they did a year ago, they complement each other. They’re not walking on eggshells, anymore, they’re both stomping through these playoffs in perfect sync. Luka draining threes from the edge of the logo and Kyrie finishing with a reverse left-handed layup down low. Kyrie drawing a double-team so Luka can lob one up for a Gafford slam and Luka actually playing defense! Luka with steals and blocks! It’s not a coincidence that they each finished with 36 points last night on 14 made shots. It’s art. They trust each other, they feed off each other, they push each other.

They need each other.

Now, that they’ve got each other, nobody’s going to stop ’em.

Peace,

Allan

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