- The Mavericks still don’t plan on guard Jalen Brunson returning this season, Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News tweets. Brunson underwent right shoulder surgery this same week that play was halted. He hasn’t played since February 22.
- Barring a new setback or injury, Mavericks star Luka Doncic will be healthy for the NBA’s restart, Callie Caplan of the Dallas Morning News writes. Doncic has dealt with a sprained ankle, an illness and various thumb and wrist injuries in 2020. Caplan also examines other Mavs-related notes, including the team’s starting lineup and who could be a potential X-factor in the playoffs.
Jason Terry will be joining the University of Arizona as an assistant coach, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Terry had been serving as an assistant GM of the Texas Legends, the Mavericks‘ G League affiliate. Charania adds that an official announcement is expected on Thursday.
Terry was selected out of Arizona in the 1999 NBA draft by the Hawks. He spent 19 seasons in the NBA, including five with Atlanta and eight with Dallas.
The Jet won a title with the Mavs during the 2010/11 campaign. While in Dallas, he won a Sixth Man of the Year award. Terry had stints in Boston, Brooklyn, Houston, and Milwaukee in addition to playing for the aforementioned teams.
The Mavericks will become the next team to open their practice facility, according to Callie Caplan of The Dallas Morning News. Coach Rick Carlisle confirmed that the facility will be reopened Thursday for limited player workouts.
Carlisle provided details about the return during a Zoom meeting today with players, coaches and the team internist. Under league rules, only four players at a time are permitted in the facility and no group activities such as practices or scrimmages are allowed.
“One of the things we went over in the Zoom call today were the procedures for going in and out of the facility and procedures from going workout to workout, and there’s a lot of detail involved,” Carlisle said. “(Owner) Mark Cuban has been very vigilant on the fact that we cannot be in a rush to reopen unless the timing is right.
“So we probably are (one of the last facilities) to reopen, but I’m actually proud of that fact because I think it’s been the right decision, and I also know our players have been doing a great job on their own of staying in shape and taking care of themselves, so we have a high level of trust with our players.”
The NBA allowed players to begin working out at their team facilities on May 8, but the Mavericks have remained cautious, even though Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifted a stay-at-home order on May 1. Dallas’ decision leaves the Celtics, Knicks, Bulls, Pistons, Wizards, Spurs and Warriors as the only teams not using their facilities.
As ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski detailed earlier today, the format for the NBA’s potential return to play this summer is a topic of much debate within the league right now. Teams at the top of the standings will have different motivations than bottom-feeding clubs or those on the fringes of playoff contention, leading to disagreement over which format would make the most sense for the league as a whole.
On Monday, we discussed the possibility of the NBA re-seeding playoff teams, regardless of conference, for its 2020 playoffs. Earlier today, we explored the idea of what a World Cup-style play-in pool would look like in place of the usual first round. Now, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has shared his own proposal with ESPN’s Tim MacMahon.
Cuban would like to see all 30 teams return to action and play approximately five to seven regular season games, as MacMahon relays. Once those games were completed, these steps would follow:
- The top 10 teams from each conference would make the playoffs.
- Those teams would be re-seeded from 1 through 20 based on regular season record.
- The Nos. 17 and 20 teams and the Nos. 18 and 19 teams would face one another in a pair of single-elimination or best-of-three matchups.
- The winners of those matchups would advance to face the Nos. 15 and 16 teams for the final two spots in the playoff bracket.
- The postseason would proceed with its usual best-of-seven format from there, using 1-16 seeding rather than an East/West divide.
Cuban pointed out that such a format would give every team except the Warriors and Timberwolves a chance to qualify for at least the play-in tournament. Assuming safety and scheduling concerns didn’t get in the way, bringing every team back and playing several regular season games would also help out the league financially, allowing a number of clubs to fulfill their local TV deals, tweets MacMahon.
Cuban, who referred to his proposal as “fair” and “entertaining,” expressed concern about the play-in pool format that has been discussed by the NBA, according to MacMahon. The Mavericks owner argued that the group-stage concept “throws away the value of the whole season.”
Of course, it’s worth noting that Cuban’s proposal would benefit the Mavs. They currently hold the NBA’s 13th-best record and – given their current cushion – would have no chance of slipping to 15th and being part of his proposed play-in tournament. If the NBA used another form of play-in tournament, putting the seventh and eighth seeds in each conference up for grabs without playing any regular season games first, Dallas would be at risk of losing the No. 7 spot in the West.
Despite having multiple opportunities to join the Warriors and play with his brother to this point, Mavericks guard Seth Curry has decided he’d rather compete against Stephen Curry and has turned down those chances, as he explained on Uninterrupted’s “Go Off” with Austin Rivers.
- Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle is making sure his players stay ready ahead of the NBA’s decision on whether to resume, as The Athletic’s David Aldridge writes. Dallas has yet to open its practice facility, with Mavericks players relying on virtual instructions, at-home workouts, yoga sessions and more since the league went on hiatus. “I don’t have any doubt that the players are very motivated to play, but (they’re) also, very smart guys, and they understand, I think, that we’re in a very serious part of our history, and things need to be handled the right way,” Carlisle said.
- Mavericks team owner Mark Cuban is excited about how Tim Hardaway Jr. has fit with the squad during his first year in Dallas, according to an interview with WFAN recounted by Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. “Quickest release in the NBA,” Cuban raved. “Probably one of the top three catch-and-shoot players in all of the NBA now.” This season, the 28-year-old shooting guard has averaged 15.8 PPG, 3.1 PG, and 2.0 APG on 43.7% shooting from the field. He has converted 40.7% of his 7.2 three-point attempts per game.
One of the many topics discussed by the NBA in the 10 weeks since COVID-19 shut down the 2019/20 season is the possibility of adjusting the playoff format if the season resumes. Reducing the number of games per series or even shifting to more of a tournament-style postseason could significantly cut down on the amount of time players and teams would have to remain in a “bubble” location to complete the season.
However, appearing on ESPN’s Get Up this morning (video link), Adrian Wojnarowski stressed that commissioner NBA Adam Silver continues to prioritize a best-of-seven format for playoff series, assuming the season can resume.
“Adam Silver wants to have seven-game series in the playoffs,” Wojnarowski told Mike Greenberg. “He doesn’t want to have shortened series early on. He wants to try to legitimize the champion as much as he can.”
While it seems inevitable that some NBA fans and observers will attach an asterisk to whatever team wins the 2019/20 title, maintaining that best-of-seven format would at least ensure that this year’s winner doesn’t make it through the playoffs under entirely different circumstances than usual.
Of course, the end of the season – again, assuming it can be completed – will still be very atypical. As Wojnarowski noted on Get Up and during a Wednesday appearance on ESPN’s SportsCenter (video link), the NBA still hopes to bring back all 30 teams – or as close to 30 as possible – this summer, and may need to provide some sort of incentive to convince those lottery-bound teams to return.
One of the biggest ongoing conversations around the league is how many clubs will be invited to the NBA’s “bubble,” how many will have an opportunity to make the playoffs, and what a potential play-in tournament for the final postseason spot or two could look like.
As Woj pointed out during both of his TV appearances, the league will have to walk a fine line as it attempts to make things fair for teams like the Mavericks and Grizzlies, who comfortably hold the Nos. 7 and 8 seeds, while potentially incentivizing a return for current lottery teams by putting those playoff spots up for grabs.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said last week that his team will proceed with caution when it comes to reopening its practice facility. Speaking this week to Tim Cato of The Athletic, Cuban provided a few additional details on his stance, reiterating that he doesn’t feel the need to reopen the club’s facility until frequent coronavirus testing is possible.
“The way the White House protects the president and vice president is the way that I want to protect our players and employees, you know?” Cuban said. “We’ll just try to just copy what they do as a means of knowing when the time is right. As of now, for all we know, for all we’ve been informed, anyways, they’re testing everybody. And they test their top people on a daily basis. And so they have access to the best science, the best information, and so it just makes sense to me that we just copy them.”
Noting that the NBA is limiting players to one-hour workouts at practice facilities, with limited resources available in those sessions, Cuban suggested that opening up the Mavericks’ facility wouldn’t hugely benefit his own players, who all have access to hoops. For that reason, Cuban also doesn’t believe that teams opening their facilities now will have a major leg up over the Mavs.
“I don’t think it matters because the competitive advantage of one guy on one basket for one hour at a time isn’t all that significant,” Cuban told Cato.
Here’s more from the Mavs owner:
- Cuban isn’t worried about the possibility of lottery-bound teams resisting participation in regular-season games this summer, if and when the season resumes, as he tells Cato. “Guys realize there’s something bigger at stake,” he said. “And that’s the best way to put it. NBA players are smart. They recognize there’s something bigger at stake than, you know, the aggravation of playing five, six, seven, whatever-it-may-be more regular-season games even if they’re completely out of the playoffs.”
- Cuban pointed to the most recent episodes of The Last Dance when he explained one reason why the NBA wants to play regular season games rather than jumping right into the playoffs if the season resumes. “If you watched Sunday, when Michael Jordan came back?” Cuban said, referring to Jordan’s 1995 return to basketball. “And we’re talking Michael Jordan, right, in his prime. And he talked about how he didn’t have his legs for the playoffs.”
- The Mavericks won’t necessarily have to make major changes to their roster in order to become a championship contender, in Cuban’s view. Asked if he could picture eight or 10 players from the current roster being part of a title-contending Mavs squad a few years from now, he replied, “Yeah, absolutely. I expect our team to grow.”
- As for what he’ll remember about the pre-pandemic 2019/20 season, Cuban singled out Luka Doncic‘s growth, Kristaps Porzingis‘ return, and the “great progress” that the Mavs made. “We went from being a team that, you know, was out of contention for everything to being a team that, if we’re healthy, can potentially compete,” Cuban said.
- Mavericks star guard Luka Doncic flew home to Slovenia on a private jet shortly after the NBA suspended the season, Shelburne reveals in a separate story. Doncic will have to go into quarantine once he returns to the U.S., though domestic players who flew out of state during the shutdown will also have to quarantine.