Roundtable: What Mavs Moneyball is thankful for this Thanksgiving

Here at Mavs Moneyball, your premier holiday destination for Dallas Mavericks content and coverage, we’re thankful for many things. We’re thankful our families, friends, and especially you, the reader. Without the dedicated MMB community, we would be little more than lunatics yelling into the void (that’s what Twitter is for). First and foremost, as Tim Hardaway Jr. likes to say, we want to extend a warm Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate!

As for us, more specifically, we’re thankful for Mavericks simply existing. Sure, they may fray our nerves from time to time, but without them we wouldn’t have our fandom. So, on this Thanksgiving, we are giving thanks to the basketball team, players, and adjacent entities that we care about the most.

Ben: I’m thankful for Jalen Brunson taking a mini-leap early this season. He’s won several games for the Mavericks and has developed into the second playmaker they’ve needed. Pay the man!

Kirk: It’s got to be how good Porzingis looks. There’s a fair amount of talk about Rick Carlisle versus Jason Kidd in terms of how he’s used but anyone with eyes must see he’s moving so much better. He’s more confident in his body and that is something to be thrilled about.

Matthew: I am personally thankful that so much of my concern is how well or poorly the Mavericks are playing. It has been an extremely difficult year for many people and has given them concerns much greater than the results of their sports teams.

I love the Mavericks and I get both too happy when things are going well and too sad when things are going poorly for them. But at the end of the day there are more important things that sports and I am blessed to be in a good enough position that I can devote so much time and energy to my Mavericks fandom.

Clint: I’m thankful that the dreams are less frequent. You know the ones. You’re asleep in bed. You hear a noise and open your eyes. He’s standing above you. Mavs Man. You look to your left, and on the other side of the bed.... Champ. At the foot of the bed, the Mavs Maniacs. You hear a voice. It’s Derek Harper. He says, “we’re here to hurt you, at this juncture.”

You want to scream but you can’t. Your family isn’t safe. Mavs Man reaches his hand towards your face. You wake up with a start. The sheets are wet. You have a strange taste in your mouth.

This season, I’m only having this dream 2-3 times a week instead of every night. I feel so much more well-rested. Thanks Jason Kidd!

Tim: Like Kirk, I’m thankful that Kristaps Porzingis is playing some of the best basketball of his career since coming back from his lower back tightness injury. He’s moving great, always attacking, and shooting with very high efficiency in the restricted area on almost 5 attempts a game. He looks like the version of KP we’ve all been waiting for.

Mike: i’m thankful for sbn for helping me getting my twitter account unsuspended so that i can continue to tweet terrible puns

Matt: I’m thankful that Rick Carlisle hasn’t immediately led the Pacers to the top of the Eastern Conference. Should I just mind my business and worry about the Mavericks record? Yes. Is it emotionally healthy to have part of my sports enjoyment be contingent upon not simply my team doing well, but also teams only tangentially even connected to my team also going poorly? Debate-able. But if there’s a socially acceptable avenue in which to air out petty grievances, it’s sports. The only thing I check more than Maverick wins is Laker losses. Feels good.

Let it be known, I’m eternally grateful to the man who helmed Dallas’ one and only NBA title. I’d also be devastated if, upon dumping us, he immediately returned to the finals. I recognize that player and personnel transactions aren’t a reflection of me personally or even the MFFLs as a whole — if anything it’s an indictment of a bunch of decision-makers who I could care less about — but those guys aren’t in the twitter trenches, hearing from the Trae-anon legion after Atlanta made a deep playoff run last season. The “Mavs won the KP trade” declarations are already teetering on the brink; I couldn’t handle another broadside from an Eastern Conference contender.

Doyle: I’m thankful Toni Braxton isn’t on the Mavericks’ leadership council.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

That’s all I’ve got, argue about them in the comments below, and happy Thanksgiving!

We have a Thanksgiving Special Podcast here. It’s really just a reairing of Josh and Kirk during the 2018 draft after Luka Doncic got drafted. If you can’t see the embed below, click here to be taken to it directly or go to your favorite app and search Mavs Moneyball podcast.