From Champion To Dark Horse

Can someone please tell me how the defending NBA champion Dallas Mavericks can be an underrated team? I thought the defending champs had targets painted on their backs, I did not know they had to do the painting themselves. It seems like everyone has already made the assumption that their NBA title was a fluke, and with the loss of Tyson Chandler I was almost ready to agree. Then, like a flash of 6’10” lightning, the Dallas Mavericks made a trade for Lamar Odom which I think is being widely overlooked by all of the media outlets. By adding Odom the Mavericks have gained another player who averaged around 15 points a game last year and is easily capable of averaging 18-20 points per game in any given season.

The other big name addition the Mavs had was the 34 year old Vince Carter. Carter has many accolades to his name but he has not been awarded anything since 2007. Last year Carter averaged 14 points a game during his stints with the Magic and the Suns. Pretty good for not having played more than 51 games for either team. The Mavs will now have a large void in paint with the absence of Chandler, who averaged 10 points and 9 boards a game. However, it is not an insurmountable problem, after all, we did see the Mavs make it to the NBA finals once before with Eric Dampier. Critics may say that Dampier was the self proclaimed second best center in the league in 2006 (he made that claim on television that season). Truth be told, Eric Dampier wasn’t even the 30th best center in the league. Let’s not count the Mavs out because they lost a talented center like Chandler. They have done it before with no talent at that position and Brendan Haywood has some talent. The Mavs lost a few other guys like J.J. Barea, and Caron Butler but neither were all stars so I do not think the Mavs are any worse off. My prediction – the Dallas Mavericks win 51 games this year. After all, they still have Dirk Nowitzki.

By Clint Winn
SOS Staff