the Pre-Luka trade Dallas Mavericks could have won the Finals – Slightly Biased Reacts

the Pre-Luka trade Dallas Mavericks could have won the Finals – Slightly Biased Reacts

Oh, hey guys. Hey, what’s up? It’s Thursday. I’m live on Bleacher Report right now. Every Thursday, 5:00 p. p.m. Central Standard Time. The Dallas Mavericks tab over on Bleacher Report. Yes. Yes. I’m here. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um, just collected my medal. Mavs 2425 veteran. Now, it doesn’t look this washed out. It’s because the green screen. Okay. Take a look there. uh the fully delusional do.shop. I will tweet out a link. These will be for sale soon if you want one. I only got a hundred of them. So, they’re going to fly off the shelves. So, make sure you guys uh get ready to purchase it. If you want to purchase it. Okay. Uh today I I thought about something interesting and I’ve seen this get brought up quite a bit and I kind of wanted to talk about it and that is could this Dallas Mavericks team pre-Luca Donic trade? Could they have won the NBA title this year? Obviously they went to the finals last year. They were three wins away from winning the whole thing. Although that series really wasn’t that close all things considered if we’re just being completely and totally honest with ourselves. But the fact still remains, they did make the NBA finals and they did win a game in the series. And yes, they were a little bit outmatched, but they went out in the offseason. They made moves to improve their team. And our good friend right here, our good buddy, Mr. Nico Harrison, how’s it going, buddy? Huh? Um, decided that it was time to put the kibos in that for some reason. Now, I did, you know, the clown show, the circus kind of continues. Nico Harrison fired the trainers, um, uh, fired the training staff that just a couple of weeks ago, he was adamant that they were incredible. They were a great training staff. Uh, they were let go. the guy who um Keith Belton, this guy who, you know, had a bunch of stuff going on, wasn’t qualified, didn’t meet the qualifications, didn’t have his um with certifications, whatever. Look, I’m going to be real with you. I’m not going to dive too deep into this because the the fact of the matter is I didn’t even know who this guy was until a couple weeks ago when that Tim McMahon story came out or I think it was a KO story, whoever story it was that detailed the absolute dysfunction that was going on with the Dallas Mavericks training staff. So, you know, um there’s not much for me to share about this. Again, I didn’t even know who Keith Belton was until a couple of weeks ago. Maybe that’s on me. I’m not really diving deep to who’s on the training staff for the Dallas Mavericks, but um I guess it’s good that they’ve moved on. And I I don’t know. It’s funny cuz a couple weeks ago, Nico was like, “No, these guys are the best, man. These guys are better than the guys that we just let go. Like, give me some give me some give me like some the benefit of the doubt on this.” And then a week later, he’s like, “Actually, these guys suck.” And I did think the uh the reporting on this was kind of funny. He was like, “This was a Nico Harrison decision.” That’s usually what you want to see when guys get fired. They’re being an immediate person to blame for it. Usually a sign that things are going very well. So, I to be honest with you, I didn’t really care about talking about this. Uh because like I said, I didn’t even know who this was a couple weeks ago. You know, the behind the scenes stuff with who’s the training staff, who’s who’s the assistant coaches, like you know, there’s always more than meets the eye with that stuff. And truth be told, nobody really knows, right? Nobody really knows. So again, slightly fully delusional shop. These will be dropping uh tomorrow is the time you guys are probably watching this. Friday, I only have a hundred of them and they’re going to go quick, folks. I promise you they’re going to go quick. I had had people hit me up about it. I’ve had celebrities hit me up about it. Uh the Hadid sisters, um Sabrina Carpenter as well. I don’t know if you guys are on TikTok, but the Zenaia hat discourse that’s been going around. Um she’s also interested. So that’s just just a heads up. Let’s get into this. Mavs 2024 2025 champs by sir. This is what I’d like not the musician but sir biased sir slightly biased. This is what I uh would like to be referred to as for the foreseeable future. Okay, if you guys don’t mind, let’s kind of get into it. I have my reasons why, yeah, I think they probably could have at least made another strong run for a championship and why maybe they couldn’t have made a run for another championship. Let’s just dive into it, shall we? The reasons why, yes, they could have won the championship this year. Um, let’s start here. Let’s just start with the state of the Western Conference. Again, this is a team that went to the finals a year ago. do think they improved their team in the offseason. Now, they let go of a few pieces and we’ll get to some of those people later and how they could have their absence, I guess, could have influenced another potential run here for the Mavs, but I do think in totality they got better as a team. They were deeper. Um, they had a little bit more versatility and what they could do uh lineup wise, with shooting, with defense, with size, with ball handling. And, you know, the numbers kind of beared that out. We’ll get to that here in a bit, but this is what goes into a run, right? Obviously, a lot of it is, can we build the best team possible? Can we get the best player we can possibly get? Whether that’s through the draft, the trade, free agency, and then can we surround that player with great players. That’s how you win. There’s not, it’s not really a secret. That’s how you win in the NBA. Okay? There’s always this like, well, actually, now it’s this. Well, now it’s this. We’re not It’s really just, can we put the best players we can possibly put on the basketball court and have them go out there and play and be healthy? That’s usually how you win, right? Um, sometimes you get lucky and sometimes runs require some luck, right? You look at the Celtics last year, they were dominant. They were going to win no matter what. That’s how I’ve felt about the Celtics. Uh, but they did get a little bit lucky in the run. They played nobody in the Eastern Conference. Nobody was healthy in the Eastern Conference that they played. And then they went up against a Mavs team that was just completely and totally outmatched. That’s just the reality of the situation. They took care of business. Credit to them. You look at the Nuggets, right? One of the things about the Denver Nuggets that people always [ __ ] on them for is they haven’t beat up until they beat the Clippers this year, they hadn’t beat a 50- win team, right? Um, they went on to win and when they made the finals a couple of years ago, they played the eighth seed Miami Heat who were just not really a matchup for them, right? And they won. They took advantage of that. Kudos to them. So, this this is kind of how it works. You kind of have to get lucky. And if you look at just the makeup of the West right now, yeah, it’s it’s it’s an interesting conference, right? uh you had this weird scenario where the Rockets, this inexperienced team that we all knew the flaws of their team and their flaws were very obvious entering the playoffs. Uh they’re the two seed, right? The Lakers obviously in this scenario where the Luca trade doesn’t happen, a completely different basketball team. Uh the Timberwolves, a six seed entering the playoffs because they kind of had this up and down season. Nuggets, a flawed team. They’re in a 1-1 series right now in the second round against a 67 win Thunder team. Uh it’s just a weird conference at a conference that I’ve been saying this all year long and I still stand by it based off what we’ve seen. The series is tied 1-1 as the time of this stream. Um I do think the Thunder were a class ahead of the rest above the rest in terms of the Western Conference. And truthfully, I still think that probably would have been the case if the Mavericks just kind of, you know, held steady and kept the same team or around the same team after the trade deadline that they enter the trade deadline with. of course, including Luca. But, uh, make no mistake about it. I mean, the Mavericks beat them in the playoffs last year. They are what, three-1 against them in the regular season. This year, they have something. They had something, I guess I should say, for this Thunder team, and that is ton of size. We saw in game one of that Thunder Nugget series how just Aaron Gordon and Jokic and Joic one of the best offensive rebounders, frankly, we’ve ever seen in the league. But Aaron Gordon’s also great rebounding and just being big. um that they can kind of dominate with size, right? And we even saw that in the regular season matchups between these two teams. So, they definitely would have given them a problem, you know, and I don’t know, maybe maybe in this scenario, the Mavericks just hold steady the course of season and they’re the two seed and they don’t have to worry about a potential Thunder matchup until the conference finals. Like, this is how these things play out. But you look at the Western Conference and yeah, I I I really do think the Mavericks team that we saw in December in January before the Luca injury um was the second best team in the West fairly comfortably. I still think there’s even a part of me who feels honestly if we’re going to do this that let’s just say the Anthony Davis trade happens and he doesn’t get hurt and Kyrie doesn’t get hurt. I think there’s a world where that’s the second best team in the West as well. I’m just being honest with you. Now, I last week we did this thing where why this current version of the Mavs team, why I did not think they were close to being a championship contender and ultimately that came down to shot creation and that still would have been a problem, but uh just the size and the physicality that the Mavs play with uh you see it in the playoffs that physical teams do well. It’s how it’s how it goes. I mean, the Thunder are so physical and it completely By the way, just a quick little aside, just I’ll be really quick, I promise. Um, have we reached the peak of crying and bitching about refs? I think we have, cuz Nuggets fans are crying. All spent all day crying about officiating in a game they lost by 40 points. I mean, you got to give it up for them. Great job, guys. That’s impressive stuff. I I don’t think I’ve seen that yet. Um, I I think we’ve reached the pinnacle of crying endlessly about officiating. So annoying. So, let’s start with why before the trade the Mavericks could have won an NBA title. Let’s just start with their starting five, right? It took a while for them to get to this group. They started the season with Gaffford starting lively coming off the bench. This was a team that was not healthy at all for most of the season. So, we saw this lineup very very in very very small spurts, right? Um around 250 possessions with this group of five. But in those 250 possessions, which is a smaller sample, but in those 250 possessions, they had a plus 25 net rating. They weren’t plus 25 overall. They had a plus 25 net rating, which over the course of the entire NBA season amongst any lineup that played over 200 possessions, that is the third best lineup in the NBA. What that starting five group was for the Mavericks uh before injuries and before the trade. They had a 130 offensive rating. this group did with a 105 defensive rating. Look, depth is great in the playoffs. Um, we’ll get to that here in a bit because this Mavericks team was incredibly deep, but really it’s your top end guys. Do you have a group that can dominate? Do you have a group that can close out games and you feel good about them no matter what? And the reality is the Mavericks did have that group. You had shooting with this uh group, the trio of Kyrie, Luca, Clay. uh great shooting and then PJ Washington shot 37% from three this year. So you factor that in, you had shooting, you had size, the the rim deterrence, we’ll get to Derrick Lively here more in a bit, but the rim deterrence of Derrick Lively, the physicality and the size of PJ Washington. Um, even a guy like Luca who as one of your guards being 6’7 with a seven foot wingspan and your real weakness was your point of attack defense which you did not have in this group but you had the size to sort of make up for it to funnel guys into the paint into Derrick Lively into PJ Washington and um just kind of wreak havoc uh in the paint defensively which is what this Mavericks team is sort of built on and what they’ve done. So yeah, you had this group of five that was good enough to close games at the highest leverage imaginable. Uh Luca Donuch before the trade, the Mavs were 12 points per 100 possessions better when he was on the court versus when he was off of the court. So of course in this makeelieve scenario, the trade doesn’t happen. And Luca um and the Mavs continue to just win minutes when he’s on the court. And this is considering, and we’re going to get to this a little bit more later, but this is considering this is also factoring in, you know, this wasn’t a great by his standards, Lucas season. It was obviously a great season numbers-wise and stuff like that, but you know, we it was kind of well documented early in the season coming off that calf injury before the season started. It was one of the worst 10ame shooting stretches of his career. Um, it took a while for him to get going conditioning wise to play his way into shape, you know. Um, but you feel like he would have maybe gotten there at some point, even factoring in the Christmas Day calf strain. Uh, and the reality is is it’s still it’s still Luca Donic. And what else have we seen in the playoffs, right? Above all else, what else have we seen? Um, it’s funny because this is a this is a hilarious ass commercial. I’ve got the Sports Center on here off to the side. They got Jason Tat This commercial came out today. It’s a Superman commercial. Superman takes the day off. Who’s going to fill in? Jason Tatum. Yeah. All right. Okay. Hilarious commercial, especially considering the disappearing act Jason Tatum had. But you see it, right? What’s been the difference in that series so far for the Celtics and Knicks? The Celtics have had 20 point leads in both games. Um, but when the fourth quarter comes and it’s winning time, it’s nutcrunch time. Jason Tatum pisses and shits his pants and Jaylen Brunson just takes the game over, right? Luca Donuch is a guy who can take the game over. Now, we’ll get to some of the concerns with him here in a bit, but Luca Donuch, Kyrie Irving, these two are guys, these are two guys who can take the game over, who can win you games down the stretch. And even the series that Luca Donic lost with the Lakers, Anthony Edwards was a guy who was tremendous in the fourth quarter of those games. We can talk about depth. We can talk about this team is deep, this team has guys, we’ll figure it out. we’ll we’ll sort of we’ll like the Rockets like we’ll just play hard on defense and we’ll kind of figure it out as it gets there. The reality is if you don’t have that go-to guy, you’re probably not going far in the playoffs. This Mavericks team absolutely had a go-to guy, a couple of them. Let’s talk about Derek Lively. Derrick Lively is a big reason why I think the Mavericks will still be a pretty good team moving forward, but why I think that had they just kind of held steady and stayed the course, they could have absolutely been a team that won the NBA Finals this year. because I absolutely loved what I saw from Derrick Lively this season in the rare times that we saw him I think only like 30 games total the Derrick Lively play big concern for him but he was healthy at the end of the season so in this scenario I’m I’m considering that he’ll be back and playing come playoff time they were 17 point I’m sorry 11.7 points per 100 possessions better this year when Lavlu was on the court their defense was 10 points per 100 possessions better his rim protection numbers were just incredible opponent got at the rim four percentage points less when he was on the floor. Uh just a rim deterrence in every sense of the word. A captain of the defense and frankly I love what I saw from Derrick Lively this year. Offensively, did he take leaps? Yeah, I did think as a playmaker he looked much more comfortable. He was already great in the short role passing out of that. Uh he just looked so comfortable. I thought that continued this year, but just defensively, right? Um and I’m happy that the numbers sort of backed this up. Defensively, I thought he took a massive leap forward from what we saw from him this season. Again, as a rim protector, also somebody who can sit in a chair on an island, get switched on to perimeter guys, and yeah, he’ll get beat from time to time. Every big gets beat whenever they get switched, but held his own enough that you felt comfortable with it. Uh, improved his free throw percentage by 13 percentage points. Huge deal for him. Block shots. Um, again, just captain the defense. And it’s so impressive for a 21-year-old center in his second season to do the stuff Derrick Lavy’s doing. He’s a championship level big. I I believe that one million%. And uh I think we would have been able to see that at the highest level had this trade not taken place. And by the way, before anyone’s like, “Dude, why are you still doing this?” Um I haven’t talked about this trade really much at all, at least compared to other, you know, Dallas people, but to compared to other Dallas people, um it’s I’m doing a Dallas Maverick stream on Bleach Report. If you’re watching this on YouTube, it’s why I’m doing a Dallas Maverick stream every Thursday. And this was kind of a hot topic thing and I thought it was interesting to go over before we dive into draft stuff uh going into next week because the draft lottery is on Monday and we’ll know where the Dallas Mavericks are drafting. Um offensively, right, is this an offense that could have won at the highest level? Obviously, the answer to that question is yes. That goes without being said. Um there are some concerns and I’ll get to some of the concerns offensively with them later on, but this is uh this was one of the best back courts in the history of the league. These two had great synergy. They played off each other incredibly well. Um, their three-point shooting, which again, I’ll touch on this here in a bit. It was bottom 10, and all these stats are up until January 1st because that’s when Luca got hurt, Derrick Lively got hurt. There’s no point in really looking at the stats outside of that. Um, but this was a team that didn’t shoot a lot of threes, interestingly enough. They were bottom 10 in three-point frequency over that stretch. It was interesting to watch defenses sort of try and take a Boston Celtics approach to defending this team where we’re not going to help off of shooters. You know, we’re going to switch. We’re going to take away the pick and roll and and Luca is just going to have to beat us with the scoring. And early in the season, it’s why the Mavs offensively struggled a little bit because Luca was struggling. But once he returned from that wrist sprain, you know, he looked fantastic, was getting downhill. Um, looked to be in better shape. Let’s just call it what it is. And the offense was starting to click. The offense was starting to hum. And even though they are bottom 10 in frequency, they are top six in accuracy. Their half court offense was top five in the league. Like all of these things that you have to do to win at the highest level, we know this Dallas Mavericks team could do. Kyrie Irving, I thought, was having a I mean, made the All-Star game. Uh, fortunately, he definitely deserved it. Was having an allNBA level season before his catastrophic knee injury. And let’s just assume in this universe, Kyrie’s not forced to play 40 minutes a night. And and by the way, I don’t think that’s the reason why this happened. It was just a really unfortunate, you know, accident. Um, but let’s just assume in this world the injury doesn’t happen because Luca is here and maybe he’s playing less minutes, you know, whatever the case may be. Um, but in the games Luca and Kyrie play together, plus 9 net rating when both of them are on the floor. Um, they were plus three and a half net rating when Kyrie on the floor and Luke off. So surviving the non-Luca minutes. And uh, he was 24 points per game, 44% from three up until January 1st. Incredibly efficient. and he was shooting 50% from three on the season. I looked this up and I double checked it. 50% from three on the season when he was sharing the floor with Luca. 50%. Kyrie just had a tremendous season. Uh I do think would have been an all NBA player if he were healthy, but unfortunately missed the game mark. Uh yeah, like I know like the the Kyrie a bad taste left in our mouth after the the finals last year, but I thought he was so good. Um and I thought he was so good in the playoffs last year up until that, even the Thunder series where his numbers weren’t the best. I thought he did such a good job playmaking and playing off of double teams and stuff like that that um you know, I just have I just have a lot of faith and confidence in him as a number two guy in the playoffs. That goes without being said, Klay Thompson, the captain. Let’s talk about his impact on the team. An interesting player. And again, I I’ll we’ll get to some of the some of the reasons why they maybe couldn’t have won a championship this year. We’ll get to that at the end. But Clay, 41% from three this year when he shared the floor with Luca. Now, the interesting stuff here, and this kind of goes back to something I said at the top with depth, right? Um, the Mavericks had the ability to be a very versatile team. They had a lot of answers to teams questions and they had a lot of questions that they could pose themselves. A lot of different lineups they could throw out there, a lot of lineups with shooting, with defense, with size, with ball handling. They had a lot of different ways that they could approach their lineup construction. And Clay, I thought, was kind of the the reason for that, right? because you look at it and the numbers with Clay, Luca, and Kyrie on the floor together weren’t that great. You know, they were plus three net rating when those three on the floor together and the eye kind of backed that up. Um, just I felt like there wasn’t enough touches for Clay. He was kind of out of rhythm. It it was kind of hard trying to find this balance of how do we get Luca involved, Kyrie involved. Those guys need their touches and their shots, but we also want to get Klay enough shots that he stays within a rhythm over the course of a season. And that was a struggle at times. I mean, there were stretches where Klay was taking like four shots a game, which never should have been the case. But also, you had your worries defensively. But the thing is is if it was just two of those three, Kyrie, Luca, and Clay, just two of those three, those lineups were were dominant. I mean, absolutely dominant. Clay and Kyrie, plus 10 net rating. Clay and Luca, plus 32 net rating. Luca and Kyrie, no Clay, plus 24 net rating. It’s just was finding the balance. And I do think if if the trade didn’t happen and this was just the Mavs team that we had, I do think at some point in the season, they would have sort of figured out that maybe Luca, Kyrie, Clay is not a trio we can have on the court for like super high volume of minutes in a postseason setting again because of the defense. And two, it’s just better it’s better for Clay if he’s just playing off of one of those guys, spacing the floor for one of those guys. Um, even if it’s just one of them like no Kyrie, Luca, these guys haven’t played with a floor spacer like that in at least Luca hasn’t. you know, Kyrie’s played with like KD and stuff like that, but um Luca’s never played with a floor spacer of that of that caliber. So, just playing off of him and even with Kyrie off, you still have this guy who’s taking up so much space offensively because of all the attention he draws off ball that Luca just has so much space to operate or you know, teams double. The Mavericks were smart. They they they I thought Kidd did a good job game planning at times to, you know, have have Clay be one pass away or run off ball screens, pin downs for Clay. so he can, you know, fly off of a screen and Luke is drawing attention. Now we have Klay flying off of a pin down. Like there’s just so much going on that uh Klay got some really good looks over the course of a season. And you know, I think that was kind of the key to unlocking a lot of different things for the Mavericks. Uh and how about Big Gaff? Daniel Gaffne flex on him. The landlord. I want to shout him out. Obviously, he had a knee injury that he was also dealing with. I mean, everyone was dealing with an injury. I was dealing with it. We’re all dealing with injuries. Uh Big Gaffne 10 games after Derrick Gladley went out with an injury, 18 points per game, 10 rebounds per game, three and a half blocks per game, 72% from the field. Um playing nearly 30 minutes a game, which is something he’s never really been about. Um and it’s so interesting if if that you were to do awards for the season, I I would say Derek Daniel Gaffford is probably the most improved player for the Mavericks. And you look around the league, you look at the teams in the playoffs. Um I’m thinking about a scenario where you get a Nuggets Mavericks matchup. I’m imagining, you know, the Gaffford minutes, Joic off the floor. That that those are minutes you probably dominate. Honest to God, those are minutes you probably dominate over the course of the series. And that’s something that probably swings an entire series, right? So, uh, I loved what I saw from Gaffford after the lively injury, really coming into his own, and that was after Luca was hurt, too. So, there was a lot of Gaffford doing it on his own. Uh, I loved what I saw from him, and I thought he was shaping up to be somebody who contributed at a high level in the playoffs, which is something he didn’t really do last year, right, because he kind of got played off the floor in certain matchups. Um, also, this is the only picture of the bench I could find. Everybody upset and sad. That’s just how it goes. But their depth, right? The Mavericks, um, an incredibly deep team, one of the deeper teams in the NBA. How much does depth ma really matter in the playoffs? I think people pick and choose when they decide it does. I think it definitely matters, right? Um, obviously you want your top five to be great because that’s those guys are going to be playing 40 minutes a night in the playoffs, especially later in series. But it is nice to have guys that you can go to. Versatility. It is nice to give guys stretches where they don’t have to be playing 43, 44, 45 minutes. Um, and the Mavericks had that. I mean, they did. They They were one of the deeper teams in the entire association over the course of the season. And look, even after the trade, I’ll still say they are still one of the deeper teams in the league. So, that’s something that was definitely working in their favor. They had championship quality depth. I’m comfortable saying that. How about some of the reasons why they won’t? Look at that graphic design. You see how I went red with the no? I mean, that’s why couldn’t they? I’m not sure they would have been good enough defensively to win four straight series. I know that uh through January 1st, they were top 10 in defensive rating. That’s great. It’s typically sort of the benchmark you have to be at if you want to win a championship, just historically speaking. Surprisingly, they were top three as a transition defense. That actually shocked me a little bit. Uh 12th in the half court defensively. That didn’t really shock me. That that the pass about the eye test around maybe a little bit above average uh with flashes of being really good at times and flashes of just frankly being lazy at other times. They were a bad rebounding team. I think a lot of that was early in the season. They did have Gaffford in the starting lineup. Um and I love Big Gaff. His rebounding numbers aren’t terrible, but he’s just not a great rebounder, especially compared to somebody like Derek Lively. Uh, and also the Mavericks pro had problems on the glass sometimes, especially against teams that like to crash the glass. A lot of it was out of laziness. Um, guys like Luca, let’s just call Spade of Spade. Guys like Luca, Clay’s bad at it as well, letting guys crash and not putting a body on them. Um, they were one of the best three-point defenses. That kind of speak to their ability to recover, to rotate. You know, we know what the Mavericks like to do defensively, which is we’ll funnel guys into our rim protection, but that’s going to require a lot of peel switches and stuff like that. So, they were good at that. Um, my only my only dilemma is defensively, did they have the guys to defend the perimeter at a high level in a playoff series? Uh, last year you had Derrick Jones Jr. who did a fantastic job guarding Ant, guarding Shay, like that was his assignment. Uh he’s gone, right, replaced with Naji Marshall. We just really didn’t see over the course of the season, we didn’t see Naji Marshall perform at that level defensively that we kind of maybe thought that he could have uh or at least enough to give you confidence that he would be a guy who could defend top end perimeter players uh in the postseason. And again, I know the defensive metrics were fine. I test tells me though, I’m just really not convinced they they would have been good enough defensively to hold their own against Shay over the course of a seven game series and I know the Mavs beat the Thunder last year, but Shay popped the [ __ ] off in that series like he just did. Um Anthony Edwards in a sevename series, I know they guarded him well last year. Derek Jones Jr. is not on the team anymore and he did a great job against Anthony Edwards. Uh you know, that’s that’s something that kind of concerns me. Also, you know, uh, a team like Golden State, if you had to play Golden State in the playoffs, look, I would have picked the Lakers to lose to Golden State of those two men in the first round. And I think them that team would have given the Mavericks a whole lot of problems as well, just cuz it’s it’s difficult that that type of offense where everybody’s involved. It’s just constant constant constant constant motion, right? Uh, you got to be locked in off ball. you’re going to get a pin down. You’re going to receive a pin down. You got to talk. You got to communicate. You got to be ready to switch. You got to be ready to recover. You got to be ready to rotate. And the reality of the situation is is those are teams that are that are difficult for Luca to guard. Um and also, you know, older guys on your roster like Kyrie Clay, that’s asking a lot out of those guys. So, um we saw the Rockets do well defensively against him just by being uber physical, right? And just honest to God, bear hugging Steph off ball. The Mavs can be uber physical as a defense, but they also don’t have the top end athletes like Amen Thompson. So, I I think they would have struggled defensively in the playoffs against certain matchups. Now, whether that was whether the defense would have struggled enough to prevent them from making an extended run, I’m not sure. Uh, look, I I mean, we can do like the fantasy world in which Luca doesn’t get traded. The reality is is this team was decimated with injuries over the course of season. In fact, let me pull up something real quick here. Let me pull up something. I made a YouTube video. Hilarious to look back on. Um, I made a YouTube video on the slightly biased channel. Those of you I’m interested in the comments. Please let me know how many of you are just slightly biased clips people. Are are there any of you who are just like you didn’t realize there was a slightly biased channel and you’re just a slightly biased clips person? I bet there’s a few. Um, but I had this uh a video. Where is it? Where is it? Let’s see here. Try to ignore Try to ignore the the white screen. I usually don’t use this browser. Um what a season from hell looks like. I this video I dropped three months ago on the slightly biased channel. What month? What? January 16th. So weeks before the trade. Weeks before the trade. I had a video also after that I was live with the Jericho Lively news dropped. Luca Donic injury scares me. Uh, this is bad. I mean, it was already kind of like it was already looking bleak for the Mavs just due to all of their injuries. Um, before the trade, okay, even if we’re living in a fairy tale world where Luca doesn’t get traded and then maybe that means Kyrie doesn’t get hurt. Okay. Uh, Dererick Lively still missed most of the season. Gaffford had a knee injury that required him to miss months. Um, Luca himself was coming off of a calf sprain that required him to miss a month and a half, the most time he ever missed in in a series in a season. Uh, PJ was in and out the lineups with weird injuries all season long. Naji Marshall uh, had the plague several different times. Uh, the first person in history to survive multiple bouts with the plague over the course of a few months. So, I think that’s a problem that would have followed them into the playoffs. you know, um just guys coming back off injuries and not really having enough time to get their feet under them fully and also too just not having that continuity over the course of a season. We’ve played together. I mean, look what the Knicks are doing right now, right? Like when the game comes down to the end and I know it’s frustrating sometimes the Knicks is like, “Why are you not putting BR like why why is Cat not sending more screens like all of this?” But I mean, they’ve played all season together, billions of minutes. It’s the Tibs thing. But they’re doing great. They’re healthy. They’re ready to go. They have that they have that connectiveness, right? Um that the Mavericks kind of would have struggled to get to. Even though they made the finals last year, they’re still a pretty relatively new group with with a couple new key inclusions. Um and the injuries sort of injuries sort of led to this point as well. Could you have made a deep run, a championship run with this version of Luca? Now, before you guys, you kill me and yell at me. Um, look, the Luca Donuch we saw in the playoffs for the Lakers was not good enough to win a championship. And that’s just the reality of the situation. Okay? Now, he’s not the reason they lost. He’s not the reason why um they lost in five games, right? This Lakers team was never going to contend at the highest level because their team was just not good enough. This Maverick’s roster a billion times better than that Lakers team. That goes without being said, right? um like last year’s last year’s Mavs teams last year’s Mavs team obliterates this probably sweeps this Lakers team, right? Um but Luca was dreadful defensively. I think a lot of that has to do with just he never fully got his legs under him at really any point this season uh for a multitude of different reasons, but I thought Luca was dreadful in that series defensively and in the fourth quarter he was awful. Fourth quarter of games, I think he was like 17% or something from the field. It was really bad. A lot of that had to do with conditioning. A lot of that had to do with again, like I said, just never really got his foot feet underneath him. Now, was the Mavericks team good enough to make up for that? Because the reality is his last postseason, Luca was dealing with a plethora of different injuries and the Mavs roster picked him up in a lot of ways. He was still he was still great, don’t get me wrong. I thought defensively he fought hard as hell last postseason and it was really kind of a even though it sort of got harped on at times especially in the finals I didn’t think that was fair because I thought he played good defense uh in the all postseason leading up to that but the Mavericks roster picked him up in a lot of ways right Kyrie PJ in that Thunder series the Mavs bigs are incredible so look maybe maybe even a compromise Luca is enough to get you to the finals but I I will say it wasn’t good enough for the Lakers I don’t know. And I don’t know if not getting traded changes the whole circumstance. It probably does from just a mental standpoint, but physically I didn’t I didn’t know if he looked like a player who was ready to go enough to win four straight series. And that’s that’s one of the problems, right? And also um one of my biggest concerns and I and I had this concern all season long that is the three-point shooting for the Mavericks. Would it have been reliable enough to feel comfortable over the course of the postseason winning four straight series? I mean, they’re not the Celtics. They don’t put up as many threes as the Celtics. Or at least they didn’t put up as many threes as the Celtics. But I mean, look at the You get you if you find yourself in one of these shooting droughts. You’re done. Look at the Celtics. How many missed threes have they had in the last two games? 70. The most ever. Like an obscene amount. Is it actually 70? I think it actually is 70. This is just the most ever over a twoame stretch. you’ve had two different teams set the record in the postseason for most missed threes in a game. Um, funny enough, the Timberwolves ended up winning their game. But, uh, you know, these these teams that are susceptible to three-point shooting droughts can find themselves in a little bit of trouble in the playoffs and this Mavericks team, you know, Naji Marshall is 27% from three. Would it have gotten to a point where Naji Marshall is just not a playable playoff player? Uh, we saw that in the Clippers Nugget series. It got to a point where Chris Kendrick Nun couldn’t even play because the Nuggets were just not guarding him. And even though he was great defensively and made things happen, was a defensive playmaker for the Clippers all year long. And even in that series, he couldn’t play because he couldn’t hit threes. And um even our even our boy Derek Jones Jr. couldn’t hit threes, so he became unplayable down the stretch of that series. Uh, so does that cut into your depth having a guy like Naji Marshall who treacherary ball handler gets out and runs in transition does play hard defensively but just can’t hit threes enough and even PJ you know 38% from three in from the corner this year great number we’re we’re comfortable with that but is there a world in which you know I’m not going to lie to you there’s a world where I’m concerned about PJ Washington’s three-point shooting over the course of a series like that’s just the truth and I think and I think we saw this against the Thunder and PJ made him made them pay but I think teams would be like, “All right, PJ, let’s see it. Let’s see it.” You know, if we got to adjust in game two, game three, fine. But let’s see it. Let’s see you knock down some threes. I do think that’s a problem the Mavericks could have potentially ran into. So, ultimately, do I think the Mavericks could have won the finals this year if Yes, I do. Um, I think they were good enough to go on a run and all runs require luck. So, they were good enough to be able to benefit off good luck, if that makes sense. With that being said though, I don’t think they’re in the tier of the Thunder. Even still, I just don’t and it’s it’s difficult to say this because the Cavs and Celtics are down two, but the Cavs and Celtics as well, you know. So, with good luck, could they have won? Yes. And that’s what all that’s what it all is. It’s always about good luck. Every championship team ever has had good luck. That’s just how it goes. Okay. So, Hush, little baby, don’t you cry. Everything’s going to be all right. Fully delusional.shop tomorrow. Nav’s 2425 veteran hat on sale. Make sure you guys don’t miss out on that. Thank you, Bleach Report, for having me. I love you guys so much.

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