Five Out Offense: Fifth in the West?

1. ESPN HIVEMIND PREDICTS MAVERICKS FINISH 5TH IN WEST, 50-32. For the last several years, ESPN has used the summer months to do predictions and rankings based off a large selection of predictions from "experts". That I am on the panel sort of negates this thought, but hey, shameless self promotion for the win! The general thought is "knowing what we know now, what do people think will happen in this situation?" Nearly 200 people gave record predictions and these are the results. My thought is that the record might be a little low, but that the place in the standings feels pretty accurate. The fact is, the 3-10 spots in the West may be entirely health dependent. The only part of this I find silly is that the Trail Blazers are 4th. The only way they improve is if Lillard takes a big step defensively, which I doubt is possible at any point.

2. MAVS TO START THE SEASON VS. THE SPURS? YES PLEASE. The full schedule will be released by the NBA tonight, and we'll have more reactions. Right now, the rumor is the Mavs will start the season watching the Spurs get rings. Talk about your motivational tactics.

3. DORON LAMB TO COME TO CAMP. WHO IS THAT AGAIN? The brilliant David Lord breaks down the potential signing of Doron Lamb and looks at the expanded roster. The short of it is Dallas will have as many as 20 people on the roster at training camp. They will need to get that down to 15 for the season, but the final three cut can be picked up by the Legends, which is excellent news.

4. THE LONG, SLOW DEPARTURE OF SHAWN MARION IS MAKING ME SAD. Bryan Gutierrez over at MavsOutsider has a bit of a #LongRead explaining why Shawn Marion isn't going to be in Dallas anymore. I think we all get it here, but if you're a casual reader who hasn't given the Mavericks some thought in a while, this is worth your time.

5. LESS THAN THREE MONTHS UNTIL THE SEASON STARTS. This may seem like a long time. It isn't. We have a ton of excellent pre-season content planned and the MMB crew is really excited to get this thing going already. There's not much else to say these days, other than stay excited! Here's a great video to help: