Dallas Mavericks fans who read what other people write about their teams have had an up-and-down season.
For reasons entirely beyond the pale of science, pretty much everybody in the non-Dallas-media community picked Dallas to be a truly awful team.
Then came the hot start. Although the Mavericks were 3-4 on Nov. 10, a six-game win streak saw them take a place in the playoff picture that no one had predicted for them. Of course, everyone assumed it wasn't going to last, but it was a good indicator, at least, that the pundits were wrong.
Since then, the team has been…confusing. Given the key players working their way back from various things, the three-point loss to the Thunder and five-point loss to the Spurs seemed as encouraging as they did disappointing. And, the Mavs have overall handled the teams they should be handling. I was at the Nuggets game where they were held to five in a quarter, and the first Wizards game in which Wes dropped 36 and the Mavs won going away.
But they dropped one by 14 to Sacramento, 26 to Indiana, and needed a miraculous comeback to beat Portland in OT. Since their winning streak, the Mavs have gone 5-8. Many of those they could have won, and they've rarely been embarrassed, but it is nevertheless a weird team that's hard to get the pulse of.
After decades of fandom I've learned that will and want to aren't much good on their own, and however frustrating it is, I won't judge the overall caliber of the team until Parsons and Matthews are playing 30 minutes a night, and on back-to-backs, and given that it's pretty encouraging they're still fifth in the west more than a quarter of the way through the season.
But there isn't one player whose overall production I think I can predict night to night, and as time goes on, that gets more and more concerning. With luck, the Mavs will start pushing the right buttons soon and they're long overdue for canning some open shots.
At the moment, however, it's all clearly a work in progress.
