Dallas half of the Season review

[Sharkn20]

The Good
We are in the Playoff race, even with our Superstar down, the Mavericks are pushing, and are pushing hard without a clear leader in the team. Allen is trying to keep the team together playing solid inside, however he is not a natural scorer and prefers to stay away from the spotlight. Who doesn't hesitate to lead is Hunter, even as a Rookie he loves those three pointers, and often finds himself at the top of the scorers in the team. Arcidiacono arrived at the perfect time and he is leading the team while Doncic is down sharing and taking care of the ball at the same rate.

The Bad
Not as bad, but without Doncic we are pulling as a team to get close to the end of the games, with 5 players, yes 5 averaging 11+ points per outing, Hunter 13.4, Kulboka 12.5, Waiters 12.2, Allen 12.1, Dellavedova 11.1, we still looking for someone to really step up and take the crown while Luka recovers. Still pretty happy about how we are handling his injury and not falling off completely from the last playoff seed available.

The Ugly
Injuries, like in the previous resume, they keep preventing us of fielding our best team on the court, specially ugly the most remarked injury of the season for the Mavs, in a horrible fall against SAC, Luka Doncic broken his elbow while penetrating to the basket in the latest minutes of the game... We can't wait to have him back in less than month and a half.

[Andrewu91]

Dallas is a team that has to make a choice. They can't win as constructed. Trades/signings/draft need to make this team a legit contender. I look at Dallas as a 1 man team. I don't even have to plan for anyone else. You need a 2nd star next to Luka to make people think, and take you serious. If not, you will continue to overpay for role players, and let Luka try to get the job done himself.

Injuries don't matter if you have a deep team. Depth definitely helps and isn't an excuse for losing. A smart gm can win with poor depth. I've seen it from previous GM's.

But just my opinion. I haven't shown anything in my time during my csl tenture. Ps: unblocking me was a good decision. I understand I can be tough sometimes, but I try to make other Gm's better in the long run. I wanna see everyone succeed ultimately. If you can handle my crap, you are tough enough to handle and win ultimately.

Ask Miami gm, I left him twice and he wanted me back and offered me more ownership of the team. Trades ECT:
He ended up winning last season..

Look at Brooklyn this year. Shane has done the major of the work, but my input has helped obviously.

[Sharkn20]

Dallas is a team that has to make a choice. They can't win as constructed. Trades/signings/draft need to make this team a legit contender. I look at Dallas as a 1 man team. I don't even have to plan for anyone else. You need a 2nd star next to Luka to make people think, and take you serious. If not, you will continue to overpay for role players, and let Luka try to get the job done himself.

Injuries don't matter if you have a deep team. Depth definitely helps and isn't an excuse for losing. A smart gm can win with poor depth. I've seen it from previous GM's.

But just my opinion. I haven't shown anything in my time during my csl tenture. Ps: unblocking me was a good decision. I understand I can be tough sometimes, but I try to make other Gm's better in the long run. I wanna see everyone succeed ultimately. If you can handle my crap, you are tough enough to handle and win ultimately.

Ask Miami gm, I left him twice and he wanted me back and offered me more ownership of the team. Trades ECT:
He ended up winning last season..

Look at Brooklyn this year. Shane has done the major of the work, but my input has helped obviously.

The old GM left us very little ammo to play with, and every GM I asked or came offering a 2nd Star is asking for Luka or Hunter in exchange, so nothing really for me to pursue there.

Once I have my 1st round picks available again I can start moving for that 2nd star...

Until then I'll keep getting that depth in the bench ready. Dallas is not ready to play with the big boys just yet, but thse think that we still holding on the #8 seed with 3 starters down says a lot about the block we are building here.

[TheTwoWallaces]

That last GM really set you back a ways. I'm impressed you guys haven't completely collapsed without Luka. That Dellavdeova signing is paying off.

[emplep7]

It definitely helps thats the Southwest is so bad this year that it seems nobody wants to stand out as the top team, but its going to be a battle for the division crown between yourselves, New Orleans, and Houston (I still can't figure out why they're not running away with this division).

I still do think Houston will eventually figure it out and find what works, but you have a good shot at making the playoffs regardless (especially with Luka coming back).

Glad to see Dallas doing good again.

[bt]

Absolutely so far have held up well without Luka.

When you have a player like Luka, just need to get to the post season and to see what he can do with 44 minutes of game time.

[Flaming Homer]

Absolutely so far have held up well without Luka.

When you have a player like Luka, just need to get to the post season and to see what he can do with 44 minutes of game time.

Exactly this

[Andrewu91]

Absolutely so far have held up well without Luka.

When you have a player like Luka, just need to get to the post season and to see what he can do with 44 minutes of game time.

Exactly this

I'm still mad I was gifted New York instead if Dallas. Luka is my favorite player and I spent thousands on his cards because he's a great investment. Either way, I would trade my Knicks for Dallas any day if Dallas gm wants to

[Sharkn20]

Absolutely so far have held up well without Luka.

When you have a player like Luka, just need to get to the post season and to see what he can do with 44 minutes of game time.

Exactly this

I'm still mad I was gifted New York instead if Dallas. Luka is my favorite player and I spent thousands on his cards because he's a great investment. Either way, I would trade my Knicks for Dallas any day if Dallas gm wants to

Thanks, but no thanks.

[Ramcus]

I'm excited for the future of the Mavs, but Andrew isn't entirely wrong. The Mavs lack a second creator/scorer threatening enough to not just put the teams best defender on him every night. That's not to say Doncic isn't good enough to beat that coverage, but he can't do it every night. Otherwise, this team is trending up.

[Flaming Homer]

Impressive how the team still competes without their star.
Very happy to see that Hunter is playing so well early in his career. Exactly a player I would love to have on my team.

Now comes the difficult part, improving the team enough to be a contender before the young guys getting paid. Trades involving your picks, FA ... some ways to go.

Good luck!!

[Marcos_Beck]

I’m not having much time to read anything for the past month or so, but I’m glad I read that article, and the discussion around it

The way you speak, Andrew, it seems like the only way to win in this engine, and this league as well, would be to have two stars. I don’t know if you’re right or wrong, but if I had to bet, 50-50, I’d much rather have my money on the “no” side.

After all, the Warriors went to 7 with Miami. Who is their second star? Who’s their first star, for God’s sake? If you make a list of the top 10 or 20 players in the league, would PJ Dozier be on it? Probably their next best player is Layman, but if you make a list of 30 possible all-stars, would he be on that list?

I’m not criticizing you, or anything like that, it’s just that there’s not only one way to build a roster. And I LOVE what Dallas has done so far because last year they literally had nothing except for Doncic, and now they built a quality roster around him. There’s no easy path to acquiring a star, it’s never that simple. Dallas is doing perfectly fine, they have the very best asset in terms of team building: FLEXIBILITY.

I believe you should have one player to trully build around, after that, anything could work. And that player doesn’t necessarily have to be a superstar scorer, just someone elite at what he does. Then, how gonna build your team, offensively, defensively, which strats you’re going to use, how many creators, so many questions with multiple correct answers.

After all, when it’s playoff time, you play your best guys for 40 minutes each and hope the team is built well enough to win it all. And Luka + Defense for 40 minutes is certainly gonna be hard to beat once everyone is fully develop on that roster. Great job with this team so far, keep it up!

[Flaming Homer]

Good point Marcos!

A second star is the most common and maybe easiest way to contention. But Ryan proved there are more ways. One thing I like about the engine, there are different ways to make team work and that is fun to try out.

[Silogical]

I would consider both layman and dozier stars. They arnt superstars, but they are in the all-star conversation. Both are easily top 50.

Doncic + a bunch of players ranked 60-150 will have a tough time winning anything. There's a lot of variance in this game so there's a chance they make a playoff run over 24 games, but they wont be a stand out team over the 82 game grind. typically you would never see a team like this in the playoffs.

[OneNole]

I would consider both layman and dozier stars. They arnt superstars, but they are in the all-star conversation. Both are easily top 50.

Doncic + a bunch of players ranked 60-150 will have a tough time winning anything. There's a lot of variance in this game so there's a chance they make a playoff run over 24 games, but they wont be a stand out team over the 82 game grind. typically you would never see a team like this in the playoffs.

I'd agree with this. Layman doesnt have tbe value he probably should due to how he performed in dds3 but he is certainly an all star caliber player in dds19 along with Dozier.

I dont totally agree with Andrew's take. I wouldnt be surprised knowing him if he had an ulterior motive for his post. Without their first round pick I think it was important that Dallas wins as many games as they can. They need to reestablish the "winning" culture that appears to be important with the new gree agent format.

Long term, signings like dellavedova, and trades for other mod level talent could create a roster that will get stuck in treadmill status. Theres already another team in the division doing that, I dont want to see my old team relegated to the same status.

My goal for them would be to continue to elevate their role players value and attempt on selling high and gain the assets needed to put a 2nd star around Doncic or two other players of similar level to Allen's. If you're able to do that, that's when we can see Dallas as a true top 3 seed not just in the West but the league.

[Silogical]

If they can bring in a 2nd star for nothing theyll be good. You could say that about any team. theyll never be able to turn their role players into a 2nd star. Not counting hunter because he is a part of their core. They wont find a 2nd star in the draft because doncic/hunter/allen will always win 38-42 games.

I dont really see a difference between the mavs and pelicans. The pelicans are a poor mans mavs. if either pulls a star out of nothing theyll get to the warriors level.