Mavericks Face Mounting Pressure Following 1-2 Road Trip

The Dallas Mavericks will return home from a three-game road trip licking their wounds following a 20-point blowout loss to the Golden State Warriors.

At this point we’ve probably seen enough evidence to suggest the idea that the Dallas Mavericks are not a contender in 2015-16. Wednesday night’s 127-107 loss to the defending NBA champions, who played with league MVP Stephen Curry this time – pretty much drives home the point that Dallas cannot beat elite competition, especially in the Western Conference.

In fact, the Mavericks began their just-completed road trip last Sunday with a second-half meltdown loss to the Houston Rockets, the very team chasing the Mavericks for the sixth seed in the West. If not for Houston’s blowout loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday, the Mavericks would find themselves already down to the seventh seed with just a single game separating these two teams near the bottom of the playoff field right now.

It’s true that the Mavericks have yet to reach a point where this team is completely healthy and firing on all cylinders. Dallas started off the season with two key players trying to return early from significant injuries sustained last season.

For Wesley Matthews, it was a slow but dedicated return coming off of a torn Achilles injury suffered last March while still playing with the Portland Trail Blazers. Ironically, the injury happened during a game against the Mavericks in Portland.

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Chandler Parsons ended up having knee surgery as May began and Dallas’ short playoff run against the Rockets was just wrapping up. Following dozens of games with minutes restrictions to begin the season, Parsons looks to be finally back to his former self over the last couple of weeks as his offensive performance has improved significantly.

However, despite the improvements of Matthews and Parsons, there’s been other nagging injuries to players like Devin Harris and now Zaza Pachulia, who missed his third-srtaight game against the Warriors due to a lower leg injury. While it’s a benefit having the athletic JaVale McGee and Tunisian rookie-center Salah Mejri available to fill in for Pachulia, there always seems to be either a lack of offense or defense in the paint no matter who’s playing in the low post.

Now, don’t take this to mean that if all of these players were completely healthy from this point moving forward that the Mavericks would suddenly become a contender. The Mavericks are good enough to beat any team, possibly with the exception of Golden State, on any given day. But when push comes to shove, the playoffs will be determined not by a ‘given day’ format.

The playoffs are obviously two brackets of series competition, and I can’t think of one Western Conference team that the Mavericks would be able to beat four times in a seven-game set.

If the Mavericks are to put themselves in position to play for some upsets in a bid to play the role of Cinderella in the postseason, the only option available to them, then they absolutely must get healthy first. Time will tell if that happens or not.

The only way the Mavericks have a chance to make noise in the postseason is to have access to the entire team, something that simply hasn’t happened very often this season.

Until the Mavericks have that superstar player who can go for 30-plus points per night while also turning in triple-doubles from time to time, this team has to win as a complete roster more than any other team in the NBA.

The Mavericks have to stop relying on free-agency to get that final piece. Beyond pending 2016 free agents LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder, there’s really no other major pieces that the Mavericks can add in the offseason that will make a big difference overall.

Simply put, this team must build in the draft, period.

It’s very similar to the idea that the Dallas Cowboys probably should accept the fact that quarterback Tony Romo probably isn’t going to lead that team to a Super Bowl. We’ve heard for years how this imaginary window for ultimate success for both Romo and Dirk Nowitzki is closing.

But what about when it’s actually closed?

Anybody sending memos on that fact?

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The Mavericks are a fringe playoff team until otherwise proven by some statement wins against a team like San Antonio and Golden State. More wins this season have to come against teams like the Rockets and the Los Angeles Clippers, the latter appearing much more vulnerable over the next several weeks following the recent actions of power forward Blake Griffin.

Even then, it still might not be enough for a Mavericks team that is certainly a good team, but quite a ways off from being a great team.

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