After basically concluding their offseason with the signing of Spencer Dinwiddie, the Dallas Mavericks and their front office will have a little bit more free time on their hands throughout the next month or so, as most basketball-related activities are coming to a stalemate as we enter the month of August next week.
Obviously this doesn’t mean that the Mavericks are completely off the clock though, as players are hard at work training for next season whilst Dallas’ front office continues to make moves within the margins to bolster the roster.
After a wildly successful offseason transaction period that came off the heels of an NBA Finals appearance, there’s only one thing on the Dallas Mavericks’ mind right now, and that’s getting back to the Finals next June.
However, naysayers in the national media will still try to debunk how close the Mavericks were to beating a championship caliber team in the Boston Celtics last season, as the Mavericks were only a few moves away from taking down what is probably the most idealistic version of a NBA roster in the year of 2024.
Adding to the list of naysayers is none other than Celtics’ legend Bob Cousy, as the 95-year-old recently said that he was “relieved” once he found out that the Mavericks were matched up with the Celtics in this past year’s Finals, as he knew Dallas wouldn’t make the games close or competitive enough at the end for the games to run later than their usual end time.
Cousy also said that he believed the Celtics’ point-of-attack defensive tandem in Derrick White and Jrue Holiday would be able to lock up the likes of Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic in the Finals, and he ended up not being wrong to a certain extent.
An NBA legend of Cousy’ status throwing salt onto an already fresh wound in the form of Dallas’ painful loss in the Finals certainly stings, but this will only motivate any Mavericks players who see this quote heading into next season, as Cousy’s wisdom and opinion is revered in NBA circles.
As nice as it is that Cousy was able to watch the Celtics relatively stress-free in the Finals last season at his old age, the Mavericks are positioned to come back better than ever next season and they are also one of the most mentally locked-in teams in the league when it comes to being able to segue distractions from the media into fuel for their fire, so perhaps Cousy woke up a sleeping giant with these remarks.
