A Mavs Moneyball Pre-Season Primer

Basketball starts really soon. Most of you know that, after all you’re reading a basketball site right in the early prime of football season.

And yet, here I am on a Tuesday night, writing about what’s to come.

So here’s what’s coming up: Media Day is Monday the 27th with Training Camp starting the next day. Then pre-season kicks off on October 6th, the first of four games. Then the actual season starts October 21st against the Hawks.

Depending on when you’re reading this, that’s less than a month from now.

There’s a lot to talk about before real basketball happens! And we’re going to have you covered. Over the next several weeks, starting today, we’re going to roll our preview coverage.

Our staff will have player previews every week day until we run out. Josh Bowe is going to be asking and trying to answer some of the biggest questions around the Mavericks. Luke Askew is going to be comparing the Mavericks to the teams he sees as potential contenders (he already started with the Lakers here). Xavier Santos is going to talk about the Mavericks in terms of daily fantasy and betting. Ben Zajdel will be speaking with media of our fellow Southwest division teams. Matthew Phillips will write... well, knowing Matthew he’s going to write 100 different articles if we let him. I suspect Lauren Gunn will have some trade targets to keep a far off eye on. Iztok Franko’s bound to have the data driven posts which make all of us smarter or at least give us new stats to argue about.

There will be division previews of the rest of the NBA. And roundtables, there will be so many roundtables with our staff answering questions and weighing in on topics that you may roll your eyes at the headline. The rest of our awesome staff will write as they can, covering all the news, analyzing and overanalyzing quotes, pre-season games, and reacting to the thoughts of the great NBA thinkers out there in the media. And there will be plenty of podcasts too.

It’s year four of Luka Doncic. It’s year three of Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis. It’s year one of Jason Kidd, head coach. After escaping the 90’s, where the Mavericks were one of the worst franchises in sports, Dallas fans have been extremely lucky, getting 21 years of Dirk Nowitzki only to end up getting to root for Luka Doncic. Those of us who have been here at Mavs Moneyball or who have been Mavs fans for a while understand that the success can be fleeting. It’s time to jump head first back into basketball.