The winds of change. The transformation of the Dallas Mavericks from last year to this is astounding. Everyone watching can feel it – something major has changed. It’s not just the leadership, a lot of staff and some of the roster. There’s more to it.
It is, however, all those new people, and what they brought along with them, that started the winds of change.
The palpable energy shift. The intangible vibe change and the excitement around the team, on the team, for the team. Even through the screen.
In the AAC, I bet it’s even more evident.
Everything has changed in Dallas. How the basketball looks on the court, how the players move (most of the time when they don’t revert back to bad habits), how they communicate, how the bench acts, even how the admin works and how the fans respond to it. But most importantly, how the coaches act, react and interact.
Dusty May has, along with his staff and new GM’s Masai Ujiri and Mike Schmitz, brought a culture change to Dallas that everyone is talking about.
From what I see, it’s a culture change founded on one of the most important aspects of leadership and sports: trust.
The power of trust and all it entails and doesn’t entail. Building trust on a sports team means a higher rate of passing, which creates a more dynamic offense and easier scoring, which we see in the increased number of assists this season, among other things. It means trusting that the ball will come back to you if you move well off-ball, and it means trusting your teammates to score, as well. That is healthy for a team as a whole, and wouldn’t ya know – it helps create a winning mindset and a winning team.
Trust also means that you don’t fear making mistakes as much, because you trust your coach and teammates won’t punish you for it, and they trust you will make up for it (perhaps on defense). Being fearful of making mistakes is the number one killer of creativity and joy. And what happens when you don’t have that? Last season happens.
And trust means that you know that your coach will make the right decisions for the team and yourself, you trust that they’re not out to get you and you trust that you are liked on our team. On Dusty May’s team, the players know he has their best interests at heart.
Dusty May is a relationship-led or based coach. He coaches his players so well, because he knows them and they trust him. I wrote more about my early impression of his coaching recently in this piece.
Dusty May has talked about trust a lot. Recently, he showed us how to talk a team up, and how he puts an emphasis on trust:
“What a problem, where you’re in a pickle, where two guys like that (Cooper Flagg and Kyrie Irving) just got it going and you just gotta rotate between putting the ball in each other’s hands and knowing that they’re going to make the plays. So obviously, what a luxury for us.”
“And once again, they both trust their teammates. When Houston put two on the ball and they were determined to take it out of their hands. They continue to trust and trust and trust, and then those reps and that experience, those guys handled it better… and that’s a sign of the trust factor that Coop and Kyrie have with their teammates.”
It’s not a stretch to say that the Mavs have had more exciting and promising wins already than the entirety of last season, while the vibes have been all the way up to 2024 Finals run levels at times.
Oh, the 2024 playoffs energy, do you remember? The power of trust and the power of a winning culture is back in Dallas. Back then, a lot of it was based on Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving leading and establishing a culture, where everyone trusted them and each other. Now, Kyrie Irving being back has helped tremendously – and Dusty May, his coaching staff and the new leadership has done the rest, while the players came in with all the right intentions and energy.
To put in perspective how well the Dallas Mavericks actually are looking when it comes to creating this culture needed for winning, let’s take a look at what is happening on another NBA team right now. NBA teams are all full of good players. The best in the world. So why do some collapse on themselves or crash and burn, despite often having stars, superstars and so-called good coaching?
In Cleveland, we have an example of what happens when trust is lacking. Here, things are looking quite differently compared to Dallas. And it’s not just about who has the best players. The opposite, actually.
In this first example from a couple weeks ago, Mario Hezonja, an actual superstar from the EuroLeague, who’s also a leader and very high-IQ player, was open for a corner three, which would have been the best look in this possession. A great look actually, considering the fact that he’s an elite threepoint shooter.
Donovan Mitchell, however, the guy who’s supposed to be the leader of this team, looks like he decides that it’s his shot now, and cuts it off to take – or steal – the shot. Which he misses.
Do you see any trust here? I don’t think so. But this is worse than that. It’s obstruction. It’s about your own ego over the team.
This is not just a show of bad vision and basketball IQ, it’s also poor leadership and probably a way to try and dominate Hezonja in the hierarchy.
Because what happened just a few days earlier exposed Mitchell in a way he is clearly not used to. To explain the background a little, Hezonja is accustomed to being the leader and superstar, it is something he has earned through the years. On top of that, he understands basketball at a high level, which becomes clear after this game. So back to the play: he waves Mitchell away to punish a mismatch a few days before. Whether this “steal” was retaliation for that, we will never know. But it was not a good look for anyone.
Hezonja showed his intelligence and basketball knowledge with this and explained matter-of-factly afterward that Mitchell should not bring the ball up, a humble stance to take from a European superstar – who is also more direct (as we are wont to be).
“I told him you’re not supposed to bring the ball up under pressure. I waived JT out to go 1-on-1 against my mismatch. I spoke to James and Donovan, there’s five of us on the court and you need to read those mismatch situations.”
This completely exposed the lack of awareness on this team, however. And it may explain some animosity. But by media and especially fans in the comments, though, it was widely heralded as something that needed to be done to address the issues on that team. A winning mindset on a team with no trust can be disruptive. But sometimes that’s what’s needed.
Back to Dallas, where we see a stark contrast in play style. Good energy and vibes bring trust (and the other way around), and that translates to better looks and eventually – winning basketball.
“There’s a lot of trust there knowing, if I give it up to you, you’re going to give it back,” Devin Harris of the Mavs broadcast crew said in this clip, hitting the nail on the head.
And it was this possession in particular that had me excited about what the Mavs can do this season. Ya, there are superstars and they can all iso and score at turn. But can they play together? Can they trust each other to make the right read?
When a team trusts each other, special things start happening. That’s where the magic shows up. We know what it looks like, and we know what it feels like, because we saw it in the 2024 Finals run. The Dallas Mavericks had something special brewing then, something that made them better as a whole than their individual parts.
That feeling seems to slowly return to Dallas these days. Sometimes we need a reminder of what not to do, before we realize what to do instead. And maybe that’s what happened in Dallas last season. The struggles of Mario Hezonja and the Cleveland Cavaliers as a contrast is a great reminder of how well things are going.
The winds of change. Trust in Dallas is back.
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