The 2015 Mavs: the Team that Just Wouldn't Die

     Dirk hit a pretty large milestone last night, becoming only the seventh player with 20,000 points, 10,000 rebounds and 1,000 blocks; which means that he is certainly one of the greatest big men to play in the NBA.  He also became the only player in NBA history with all of the above accumulated stats, plus 1,0000 made three pointers; which means that he's probably the most offensively versatile big man ever.  I hate the label that all of the commentators seem to give him, though: "the best shooting big man to play in the NBA."  Yeah, no sh*t.  Who's his only real competition, Patrick Ewing?  His shots may have gone in, but they looked ugly and no one wanted him to shoot them in the first place: they always wanted Ewing to be a bruising, aggressively physical offensive presence.  He always wanted to be a finesse player, which is why he finger-rolled that layup out of the rim in the 1993 series against the Bulls, instead of dunking it like a normal seven-foot tall center.
     But let's be honest, shall we?  Calling someone the "best shooting big man" is sort of like calling someone "the best rebounding point guard" or "the best female NASCAR driver," or "the best SNL cast member between Eddie Murphy and Chris Farley": its a back-handed compliment.  I would submit that Dirk is not just a huge man with a good-for-his size jump-shot; he is, in fact, a great shooter, one of the best in the history of the NBA, regardless of height.  How many 50-40-90 seasons (an entire season shooting 50% from the field, 40% from the 3-point line, and 90% from the free throw line) does Kobe have?  I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with "Hero" and starts with a letter that every other transplanted British colony pronounces "zed".
   Obviously, Dirk Nowitzki is not a better overall basketball player than Kobe Bryant, but if you wanted to argue that he was a better shooter, there would be some stats to back it up.  My point is, basically, stop belittling how good the man has been and recognize him as one of the best shooters in the history of the game, period; no "big man" qualifiers or asterisks.  But this has been mostly a down year for him, as age and the heavy burden of carrying a mostly-successful-but-still-too-often-somehow-incompetent franchise for the majority of his career begin to finally show in his production.  Which is even sadder when you consider that for the three previous seasons, he may still have been putting up MVP-ish numbers, if the Mavericks had bothered to pass him the ball ever.  Seriously, Vince Carter averaged more shots coming off the bench last season than one of the best players in the NBA, and still the best player on the team.  That no longer seems to be the case, but that's okay: we all have to prepare for the day when our favorite player on our favorite team can no longer shoulder the heavy burden of leading an NBA team, but that doesn't mean we are actually ready to let go (isn't that right, Lakers fans?).

     Which has left the Mavericks in a bit of a quandary this season, what with Monte Ellis and Rajon Rondo meshing about as well as Dale and Brennon; we can only hope that their partnering ends as well as the duo in the movie's did.  And even though the season is nearly over, and the Mavs seem destined for another year finishing in the bottom of the conference, followed by an ignominious first round exit (hello 2007-10!),  I can't seem to give up on this team yet.  I've wanted to; by Pete Maravich's floppy socks, how I've wanted to.  After Friday's loss to Memphis, and the embarrassing loss to the Suns two days later, I was essentially willing to write the season off as another example of why, although you might still be able to make the playoffs every year, you will probably never win a title bringing in 12 new players every season; and by the end of the first half of Tuesday's match-up with the defending Champion San Antonio Spurs, I couldn't help but feel slightly vindicated: while I was sad to see my favorite team losing in such a horrible fashion, I also enjoy being right - especially about basketball.  Then the third quarter happened, and well, I couldn't give up on them quite yet.  That's how the entire season has felt for me, by the way.  Every time I watch them have a terrible game, I can't help but think: "well, they look like a great team on paper but I guess the pieces just don't fit," they've come back within another game or two with a victory that reminds that the 1995 Houston Rockets won their second of back-back NBA titles while not being able to secure one of the top 4 spots in the conference.
    I don't think this Mavs team is going to win the Championship; there are too many warning signs that suggest otherwise.  But I do think the team has the potential, if a few things break the right way: if Monte pulls out of his slump, and Dirk plays strong in the playoffs like he has always done, and especially if Rajon Rondo turns into ROOONDOOOO!!!!!!  You never know, stranger things have happened; and that's what we watch sports for in the first place.  So I'm back in; I'm not giving up on this team again all season, at least not until they get knocked out of the playoffs...then again, they play the Spurs in San Antonio on Friday, and Oklahoma City, Houston, and Golden State next week, so...I mean, I haven't given up on them right now; that should count for something, right?  Yeah, you're right, probably not.

Will Losing Demarco Ruin the Cowboys?

Not the best title; I couldn't think of anything better.  Sorry; I know that the absolutely nobody reading this is really going to be disappointed in the title, and for that I refuse to apologize.  Demarco Murray is gone, and to the Philadelphia Eagles, no less; how much does it really end up hurting the Dallas Cowboys, though?  That's actually a harder question that it appears, depending on how you view Murray's 2014-2015 season.  Here's his stats:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://widgets.sports-reference.com/wg.fcgi?css=1&site=pfr&url=%2Fplayers%2FM%2FMurrDe00.htm&div=div_rushing_and_receiving"></script>

Since I'm pretty sure that didn't work, here's just a link to the site; not to be confused with the one to the past.  What, I'm not a web designer!  If I had the ability to customize the appearance and performance of the blog on my own, I wouldn't have to use blogger.

Look at the numbers, and then tell me this: what do you see in the previous three seasons that would lead you to believe that he was capable of having the type of season he just had?  The correct answer, by the way, should be absolutely nothing.  If, on top of that, you watched every one of those games - like I did - you would be even more hard pressed to believe it.  Not that Murray isn't a talented running back; he obviously is.  But I was never really that impressed with his performances in previous years: he was a little slow, didn't explode through the gaps like the more electrifying runners tended to do, and his lack of foot speed meant that some runs which might have ended in the zone specifically designated as "end", he would get caught by a safety and pulled down after 20 or thirty yards.  On the other hand, he was almost always injured - he may not have missed a lot of games because of the injuries, but he definitely didn't have the impact on the games that he might been able to have, had he been healthy.  But I never once said to myself, "I'm really excited that we have Demarco Murray; I think he could be the best running back in the NFL for at least one season."  What I usually thought was, "I wonder if we can package him with Miles Austin for somebody useful, before the rest of the league realizes that they're more likely to get struck by lightning in an airplane flying through shark-infested airspace, than actually have another full, productive season."  Turns out I was half-right about that; Austin is effectively done, but Murray might still have a shot.

That, to me, is the biggest question: how indicative was last year to Murray's future success?  Was it the first of many great years to come, preceded by a few injury riddled, growing-pain seasons?  Or was last year basically just Miles Austin's breakout 2009 season, after which he only ever had one more productive year (at the moment, at any rate).  Players who are injury prone are such usually due to a combination of bad luck and genetics, which I guess could also be considered a form of luck, since you can't really choose what type of arches you have under your feet; you just have to live with it and hope you don't roll your ankles too often.  That's why Greg Oden is out of the NBA, why Sam Bowie never panned out, and why Murray dropped so far in the draft back in 2011; and until the 2014-15 season, it was a legitimate concern.  It's noteworthy also that even in the midst of that season, the biggest concern was whether or not he would be able to stay healthy, because he had never before shown the ability to do so.  It's still a concern, in my opinion: you don't go from missing 4 games a year to never missing another game for the rest of your career, especially not when you're playing the most dangerous position in a violent sport.

Consider also that Dallas has one of the best offensive lines in the league; and while they may not yet have the experience that some other groups have, every time we needed a play throughout the year they came through with a big hole for Murray or protected Romo for enough time to create the play in the air.  There were multiple games were he had over 5 seconds to make crucial plays down the stretch of big games, and that is all due to the lineman.  The one, continuous image I have from every one of Murray's runs last year was the size of the holes that he was given; they were huge.  I'm not trying to completely disregard what Murray was able to do with the gaps the lineman opened up for him, but remember: before the season, absolutely no one  was picking Murray to have a big season.  He wasn't on anyone's radar, not even the fantasy football sites which at least might have predicted a statistical uptick.  If Murray had gone out with a torn ACL in preseason, no one would have been predicting doom for the season, the way I thought they were doomed when Sean Lee went down.  All of this underscores just how marvelous the season was for Murray, but it also highlights a point that no one seems to talk about anymore: we never talked about him before the season because he wasn't that great of a player.  He was a mediocre running back, just another Marion Barber, with slow feet and injury problems.  Another very important factor: look at the number of carries he had last season.  That is an insane amount; the Cowboys played like they were determined to run him into the ground.  Emmitt Smith never had that many targets per game; he was close a couple of years, between 1992 and 1995, but for the most part he was down around 18-25 carries + receptions a game.  So how much of Murray's success to we attribute to his massive workload?  Also, very hard to say.

Hey, guess what?  I have a long, incredibly over-thought comparison for just this situation, based off of one of my favorite teams of all time: the 2011 NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks.  The 2015 Cowboys and the 2011 Mavs actually have a lot in common, despite the fact that they play extremely different sports.  Lets start with the coaches: Rick Carlisle is one of the best coaches in the NBA, who has consistently demonstrated an uncanny ability to get more production from players than anyone would have expected (See Ellis, Monte).  The Cowboys, likewise, have...no, not Jason Garrett; Rod Marinelli.  Did you see what he did with what was supposed to be the worst defense in NFL history, simultaneously resurrecting the careers of 3 NFL players?  He can do no wrong; he is my old, angry, drill-sergeant hero.  On to the star of the team: an eccentrically brilliant superstar who had been maligned in recent years as too old to lead a team to a championship (a fair concern), and unfairly labeled as a "loser" who couldn't handle big game pressure.  Ladies and gentleman, I give you Tony Romo/Dirk Nowitzki!  Both feature a defense standout with the potential to be one of the best in the league, but who - due to injuries - has been overlooked in the recent season or two: Sean Lee, playing the role of Tyson Chandler.  (Though to be fair, its unclear whether Lee can ever have the same impact on a team in a leadership role that Chandler has demonstrated the ability to have).  Also, standing along-side the team leader is his veteran sidekick, the faithful old workhorse who always comes through when the team needs him, with big plays, big stops, and overall clutch performance: Jason Eugene Terry Witten.  Follow that up with a cast of over-acheiving role players, and it's a pretty inspiring comparison so far, right?  And I haven't even mentioned Dez Bryant, because that Mavericks team didn't ever have a second superstar of his caliber; of course, there are more positions on a football team, so there's bound to be more impact positions on the field than there are on a basketball court, so don't get too excited about it.

What the comparison hinges on, really, is the answer to the question: who is Demarco Murray?  I can only come up with two relevant possibilities, one which makes the coming season look rather plesant, but the other could be damning.  We'll start with hope, since there's always a surplus of it in the preseason: Demarco Murray is actually Caron Butler.  Most people forget this, since he went down in January with a knee injury that kept him sidelined for the rest of the year - including playoffs - but Caron Butler was the Mavs' second leading scorer that year, and a big reason why they were having such a great season.  When he went down, there were legitimate concerns that the Mavs wouldn't be able to replace his offense or his defense.  But Shawn Marion, the Matrix, stepped in and provided more than enough of both, while fitting seamlessly into the starting unit.  You can see where this is headed, right?  What was thought to be a major blow to the team turned out to be a minor hitch., because the rest of the players were dialed in to a system that had been perfectly suited to their talents and abilities.  Butler went down, his backup stepped in and filled the role admirably, and the Mavs went on the win the title.  Hopefully, losing Murray will be similar for the 2015 Cowboys: the infrastructure and surrounding talent is good enough that Darren McFadden and a draft pick will be able to step in to provide enough of what Murray gave us, that they'll be fine without him.  Although I don't think the team is good enough to win a Superbowl; I didn't last year, and they haven't gotten any better, so let's not get crazy about the predictions.  But, if everything works out this way, then they could have a shot at the NFC championship.  Maybe.

But there's also the chance that I have misdiagnosed the disease, and what I thought was a head cold turned out to the flu.  What if Murray is actually Jason Kidd?  Kidd never put up stats in 2011 anywhere near Murray's from last year, but if you remove Jason Kidd from that Mavs team, their entire offense sort of falls apart.  It was built off of his ability to run the team, and his pass-first attitude rubbed off on the entire team; you may have notice it happening to the Knicks in 2013 every time he stepped on the court...until his jump-shot died and Mike Woodson decided that he was a liability, and tanked him through the entire playoffs.  I'm just saying, if any Knicks fans were wondering what happened to all of the good feelings and ball-movement which seemed to abound during the regular season yet disappeared in May, that's why: Jason Kidd wasn't on the court anymore, and no one else knew how to pass the ball.  What if losing Murray has the same effect on the Cowboys?

By the way, I don't have an answer for that.  I hope that I'm right and the offensive line is good enough after another season to make up the difference with a lesser running back, but hope springs eternal in postseason and, for Cowboys fans, usually dies in December.

Sword of Vathir: Chapter 3

I'm about 90% done with writing the book, and I can't find the motivation to finish it.  I haven't done more than jot down a paragraph or two in the last month.  So, in a most likely futile effort to motivate myself again, I'm going to post chapter 3 to the blog that no one reads.  Enjoy it, cyberspace.

Elle was wholly disappointed; she had expected to feel much more...satisfied than she was.  After years of daydreaming, planning, preparations; almost the whole of her adolescent life spent entirely consumed by the passions to which she had just given vent.  And yet, she still felt...somewhat empty.  She still recalled every single second leading up to the climactic moment; slinking through corridors alone, heart racing with excitement as the adrenalin surged through her, creeping silently into the dark bedroom.  Even now the excitement of those events was embedded into her memory, and she found herself shaking at the recollection of them; the deed itself, however, seemed to pass away into the night - almost as if it hadn't happened at all.
Except that it had; the blood stains were mute evidence of that.  She had been warned that it might be this way, that afterwards she might feel disillusioned; that the disappointment was so common, it might as well be described as universal.  But not for me, she had thought.  I'll remember this moment forever; and yet now she found herself almost wishing that she could forget it.
She heard voices in the room to her right, and she stopped walking and pressed her back up against the wall.  As she crept closer to the doorway, Elle dropped quietly to her knees and waited; the night was black, empty, and chill.  There was no wind tonight, thank the gods - it was cold enough on winter nights without the biting of a northern wind - and no other sounds in the hallway this late, so she could hear them clearly enough; she crept up to the door and watched the sliver of sputtering candle light creep across the stone floors.
"Thomis, I said no!"
"You said that last time, as well; but by the end, I wager I'll have you saying 'yes' again."
"Last time was a mistake; my husband is due back in the morning-"
"All the more reason to cherish our moments together."
The candle light faded away, and the voices with them; Elle was all too sure of what the interrupted hiatus meant, but she was equally sure that they would no longer be interested in what was happening outside of their room.  At least, not for the next ten to fifteen minutes; or less, depending on Thomis' stamina.  Elle was inclined to think that it would actually be well short of ten minutes, probably nearer to three; regardless, that was more than enough time for her.  By then, she would be well out of earshot.
She continued on into the night, moving quickly on her soft, bare feet.  It took her another ten minutes to reach her own quarters; it felt like ten hours.  Every sound, every glimmer of moonlight through the window panes, seemed to harbor some unseen foe.  Elle traveled with her hand firmly grasping the knife that had been given to her, and which she now kept strapped to her upper thigh; she did not want to have to use it, but was well aware of what could happen if she was caught in such a compromising situation.  She was determined to prevent it.
Elle entered her quarters, closing the door as quickly as she could while also being mindful not to make any sound.  She dashed from the door to her chest of drawers, and flung it open; and stared in shock.
"What the hell?"
She had spent months preparing the exact items she would need for her trip north, and had stored them all in the bottom drawer, which was now completely empty.  No longer worried about being overheard, Elle tore through the other drawers, in the hopes that she might find something: the map that Robert had prepared for her, the coin purse, a small supply of food and water.  None; they were all missing.  She started to panic, when suddenly she remembered: she had packed them all that morning into a knapsack which she had then stored underneath her bed.  She ran to the bed and knelt down, nearly jumping underneath it in her haste to find the precious bag.
There it was: nestled up against the far wall.  She grabbed it with both hands and pulled it out, then wrapped her harms around it as she sat up against the straw-filled mattress, rocking it back and forth like it was a child.  After a few moments of heavy breathing, she was finally able to calm down; and then she began to laugh.  The disappointment she had been told to expect; but no one mentioned the possibility of her turning into some sort of a frantic, simple-minded idiot.
It was just the excess adrenaline, combined with the emotional shock she had just put herself through, which robbed her of her good sense for a moment.  She pulled the water-skin from the bag and drank fully half of it before returning it to her sack.  It was then, after Elle had calmed down and recovered her sanity, that she pulled the knife from the leather sheath tied to her leg, and examined it.  It was not a work of art, to be sure; it was a simple, unadorned weapon designed for utility, such as any common cutpurse might use.  But it was precious to her for other intensely personal reasons.  It was the first knife she stole after being orphaned, just over a decade ago; and it was now a gateway to all of her memories of this night.  She stared at the blood coating the blade, and remembered how his throat had whistled when she sliced it open.  The carpenter's saw she had used to sever the wretch's head off had been thrown out of the window, but the knife?  She would keep this always.  She wasn't even going to clean the blade; she would never use it again.  It was a priceless artifact now, the knife that killed the crown prince.
She threw the bag over her shoulder and climbed out the window, and down the rope ladder she had placed there earlier that night.  Awaiting Elle on the ground was a horse; she mounted, and rode away at a steady trot, still trying not to make too much noise.  In the West, the sun was beginning to rise; the gates out of the city will be opening just as she arrived, and she would be miles from the Black Hall when the bastard King came to wake his bastard son.