Mavericks Mythbusting and your queries
Checking in on the biggest mess we have ever seen and how it is making us all sad.
I wanted to write about the Mavericks today. I haven’t said a thing here at #Sturmstack since March 6, 13 days ago. That was the week Kyrie Irving was lost for the year, and I thought an immediate move to “blowing it up” was in order. Then, NFL free agency opened, the Dallas Stars attempted to seize the spring at the Mavericks’ expense, and the local basketball team faded into the background.
That isn’t to say they are irrelevant at the moment, because they are quite relevant in the sense that no amount of blows will call off the beating of any dead horses in this matter.
Thirteen days later, everyone is still sad. Some are still mad, too, but I think most have converted to just sad. We had a great thing last spring with a joyous playoff run, but it seems someone took the area’s hoop joy away, and I just cannot imagine how soon it could return.
The wild-fires of sports conspiracies only gain by the day
Now, I do want to say that any effort to assist the area sports masses with their relationship with truth now seems like an abject failure. I am not really speaking of this audience here at my newsletter, but I also do not pretend that it isn’t somewhat of an issue. Rather, I am speaking about the most popular opinions among the largest groups in society. There are many conspiracies about the Mavericks cropping up, and if I am here to stand tall as the area’s conspiracy fire department, I will just tell you—I am losing this one badly.
People believe this stuff. In fact, you might very well believe this stuff deep in your bones. These theories appear to be one or more of the following:
The Adelson family wants to move this team to Las Vegas, and this is their play to alienate the fanbase so much that the franchise will be allowed to move without much pushback.
The NBA demanded that they “get Luka Dončić to Los Angeles" to save falling TV ratings.
Nico Harrison is a Lakers sleeper cell and is doing this to ultimately secure his spot high on the Lakers' power tree in the near future—which is where he has always wanted to be.
The Mavericks will be granted the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft to “fix it with them,” since they are helping the league during this downturn.
I would like to briefly address all four before we hop into your mailbag.