How good were the late 80's mavs?

[falcolombardi]

for a team that was a game away of beating the lakers in 1988 they sure are never talked about ans seems like their players from thst era never get talked about whatsoever

were they a legitimate threat or more of a team that got lucky being so close to defeating the champion?

how good were their players st the time like Harper, aguirre, a young schrempf or rolando blackman?

[feyki]

Interesting point is that Lakers beat the 3 series with 4-3 that Playoffs. I would take Nuggets as a better team than that Mavs, also Jazz. Weak conference, generally.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

They were deep enough in 1988 for Detlef Scremph to be burried on their bench. James Donaldson was underated. Jordan once said that Rolando Blackmon was his toughest defender. Derek Harper was a solid point guard. Aguire was good. Brad Davis was a better than average back up point guard.

They had a good record in 1987 but they needed playoff experience and needed Tarpley to develop. With prime Tarpley they were very good in 1988.

In 1989 they quit and were bad. Aguirre for Dantley trade did not work out.Tarpley who may have been their most important player was kicked out of the league.

[Owly]

So ...
1) They could have been better. True of just about all teams, but I remember one chapter in a book about basketball (mostly not pro stuff) talking about the Schrempf pick could have been Karl Malone, Blab or Wennington could have been Dumars ... and that's kind of always true and usually unfair and normally overlooks that things could also have been worse e.g. Schrempf could have been Kenny Green or Keith Lee. On this line they also had Mark Price but made two simultaneous moves to deal him (Wayne Embry working for the Pacers made a deal with Rick Sund, whilst Norm Sonju sent him to the Cavs where Embry was about to work).

2) They didn't necessarily always develop their talent. Schrempf and Ellis flourished elsewhere ... it's hard to know for sure if they just needed more minutes or what ... it's kind of understandable that they moved on ... they just didn't get value.

3) What had nevertheless been a decent drafting touch deserted them. Doug Smith (6th in '91) and Randy White (8th in '89).

4) The early 90s Mavs were a mortgage the future, all in on right now experiments that doesn't get heat like tanking does, led to some awful teams but maybe could have worked:
I don't know about the cap and all that but I've heard it explained as they could have kept Perkins and made the win now moves they did (Lever, McCray, English). If they could have done that kept Tarpley clean (this, I think is huge), not made the Schrempf trade (H Williams was awful in Dallas, and Schrempf, if far less than he would become, was already solid), had better luck with health and similar aspects (no Lever injuries, no Tarpley injury, no McCray, Donaldson injuries) and had either English (or a retained Dantley ... or both ... pushing it here) stay at a higher level) ...
There's no superstar but some crazy depth, some high rep defenders (Lever, Harper, Perkins, McCray) and other good ones (Donaldson's huge, Tarpley athletic and productive defender, Blackman generally positively regarded). A lot of ifs there of course and I don't know if they could have had everyone, but it's an entertaining though ... to me at least.

5) The team that ran the Mavs close, as sort of noted by another poster, wasn't the one that would be the first semi-decent non-Lakers threat in the West in a while (numerically at least). The Lakers simply hadn't seen a 5.54 SRS team like the '87 Mavericks before the finals ... and they wouldn't until '89. Dale Ellis scored 29.5 points in 34.5 minutes, on a .612 TS% with a 7.7 tov% and a 14.2 orb% (solid 16.4 assist % too - Ellis not known as a passer) for a 128 Ortg and revenge on the Mavs with Seattle winning 3-1. The '88 team that went deeper was a solid but unexceptional 3.59 SRS.

[LewisnotMiller]

Working mostly from memory here, but even at the time they were kinda a 'maybe it will come together' type of team.

Aguirre wasn't a happy camper, for all of his offensive talents. Donaldson gave them a good (not great) centre, which was important back then. And their back court was very good, and played both ends of the floor.
As others have mentioned here, the thing that could have in theory bumped them to the next level was Tarpley. So whatever you think the chance was for Roy to stay sober and maximize his talents, I'd see that as the chance for this iteration of the Mavs to do the same.

Tantalising, but pretty low chance, to be honest.

McCray and English just weren't as impactful as they were hoping they'd be, but Tarpley, Blackman and Harper needed to be the guns, and the rest slotted in around them.

PS. Ellis and Schrempf are great names, and obviously talents, but they didn't make or break this team, and they flourished elsewhere. Perhaps the Mavs weren't great at development, but I think it was just a fact that they were focused on the immediate.

[giberish]

From my distant memory, I don't recall the 1988 Mavs as being a real threat to the Lakers. IIRC the Lakers won every home game of the series by significant margins while Dallas eeked out their 3 home wins but it just never felt like the Lakers were in danger - pretty much as lopsided as a 7 game series that goes all 7 can be. Even Utah in the 2nd round felt like more of a threat (and of course Detroit in the finals was the real threat).

[sp6r=underrated]

From my distant memory, I don't recall the 1988 Mavs as being a real threat to the Lakers. IIRC the Lakers won every home game of the series by significant margins while Dallas eeked out their 3 home wins but it just never felt like the Lakers were in danger - pretty much as lopsided as a 7 game series that goes all 7 can be. Even Utah in the 2nd round felt like more of a threat (and of course Detroit in the finals was the real threat).

An extreme example of how a 7 game series doesn't necessarily mean close is 2008 Boston vs Atlanta. Boston hammered Atlanta in their 4 wins while Atlanta won a bunch of squeakers.

[falcolombardi]

From my distant memory, I don't recall the 1988 Mavs as being a real threat to the Lakers. IIRC the Lakers won every home game of the series by significant margins while Dallas eeked out their 3 home wins but it just never felt like the Lakers were in danger - pretty much as lopsided as a 7 game series that goes all 7 can be. Even Utah in the 2nd round felt like more of a threat (and of course Detroit in the finals was the real threat).

An extreme example of how a 7 game series doesn't necessarily mean close is 2008 Boston vs Atlanta. Boston hammered Atlanta in their 4 wins while Atlanta won a bunch of squeakers.

if it came to gsne 7 then almost by definition it was a close win, the celtics may have destroyed hawks 3 times but all it would have took is one bad game 7 or 1 super hot Night for altlanta

i get the idea of using winning margins but we shouldnt discount games, after all series are not won by the team with the highest net rating

there are series out there where a team won in six while getting outscored (thunder vs spurs 2016 comes to mind) because of a outlier blowout in game 1

[sp6r=underrated]

From my distant memory, I don't recall the 1988 Mavs as being a real threat to the Lakers. IIRC the Lakers won every home game of the series by significant margins while Dallas eeked out their 3 home wins but it just never felt like the Lakers were in danger - pretty much as lopsided as a 7 game series that goes all 7 can be. Even Utah in the 2nd round felt like more of a threat (and of course Detroit in the finals was the real threat).

An extreme example of how a 7 game series doesn't necessarily mean close is 2008 Boston vs Atlanta. Boston hammered Atlanta in their 4 wins while Atlanta won a bunch of squeakers.

if it came to gsne 7 then almost by definition it was a close win, the celtics may have destroyed hawks 3 times but all it would have took is one bad game 7 or 1 super hot Night for altlanta

i get the idea of using winning margins but we shouldnt discount games, after all series are not won by the team with the highest net rating

there are series out there where a team won in six while getting outscored (thunder vs spurs 2016 comes to mind) because of a outlier blowout in game 1

I agree series are decided by number of games won but that doesn't necessarily tell you how teams actually played. A team that hammered another team with multiple blowouts convinces me they were the best team in that series. Even if Atlanta had a 1 point win in G7 I would have come away feeling like Boston just got snakebit in a super small sample size.

[falcolombardi]

An extreme example of how a 7 game series doesn't necessarily mean close is 2008 Boston vs Atlanta. Boston hammered Atlanta in their 4 wins while Atlanta won a bunch of squeakers.

if it came to gsne 7 then almost by definition it was a close win, the celtics may have destroyed hawks 3 times but all it would have took is one bad game 7 or 1 super hot Night for altlanta

i get the idea of using winning margins but we shouldnt discount games, after all series are not won by the team with the highest net rating

there are series out there where a team won in six while getting outscored (thunder vs spurs 2016 comes to mind) because of a outlier blowout in game 1

I agree series are decided by number of games won but that doesn't necessarily tell you how teams actually played. A team that hammered another team with multiple blowouts convinces me they were the best team in that series. Even if Atlanta had a 1 point win in G7 I would have come away feeling like Boston just got snakebit in a super small sample size.

the small sample size is exactly why i dont think net rating is as useful for a series as it is for a regular season

in a regular season the sample is big enough that outlier blowouts wins and losses or lopsided close games record come to the mean for the most part (teams rarely win/lose more than 5~ games their expected record

in a 4-7 game series one blow out may throw everythingh out of the wack