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2020 - 2021 Dallas Mavericks: That motherfu*ker in Dallas is coming

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Scoreboard you fucking sacks of shit.  Fuck the Clippers.

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Fuck the clippers

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LurkingHorn

LurkingHorn 1066

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So if we were to pull the trigger on KP, convince me Wiggins wouldn't be a good fit. The money appears to work, he seems to have found his 3 pt shot, and he started playing some decent defense this season. He also has one fewer year on his deal than KP. In that scenario you would probably have to play pretty small but all starters could shoot the 3:

Luka

THJ (39%)

DFS (39%)

Wiggins (38%)

Maxi?? (41%)

Seems like we'd get absolutely killed on the boards. Or maybe you don't re-sign THJ in that scenario and go after another free agent. I'm really concerned about overpaying for THJ. I love the dude, but you cannot pay that guy $20 million. 

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Vic Mackey

Vic Mackey 47029

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14 minutes ago, LurkingHorn said:

So if we were to pull the trigger on KP, convince me Wiggins wouldn't be a good fit. The money appears to work, he seems to have found his 3 pt shot, and he started playing some decent defense this season. He also has one fewer year on his deal than KP. In that scenario you would probably have to play pretty small but all starters could shoot the 3:

Luka

THJ (39%)

DFS (39%)

Wiggins (38%)

Maxi?? (41%)

Seems like we'd get absolutely killed on the boards. Or maybe you don't re-sign THJ in that scenario and go after another free agent. I'm really concerned about overpaying for THJ. I love the dude, but you cannot pay that guy $20 million. 

I agree. THJ is a fan favorite and really was our #2 guy this postseason but is we pay him that, we really are handcuffing ourselves. You can find guys like him out there every offseason. Had we not traded for JRich and kept Curry, it would make that decision even easier to let THJ walk. 

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LurkingHorn

LurkingHorn 1066

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7 minutes ago, Loch Ness Monster said:

Are there really any teams that are going to give THJ 4 years $80 million? Anything above $15 million a year and it starts to get gross considering he's a bad defender and can't create for other guys on offense.

Sign him to a reasonable deal and you can always package him in a trade down the road.

I would personally let him see what he can get on the market. No need to bid against ourselves. 

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gsoda3

gsoda3 3256

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In early February, during the second quarter of a home game against the Golden State Warriors, Luka Doncic carelessly turned over the ball and received feedback from a Dallas Mavericks employee he didn’t care for: Haralabos Voulgaris, a well-known sports gambler hired by team owner Mark Cuban in 2018.

Voulgaris, sitting with an open laptop in his typical courtside seat across from the Mavericks’ bench, motioned downward with his hands, which Doncic specifically interpreted as Voulgaris telling him to calm down, multiple team and league sources tell The Athletic. Doncic snapped back, telling Voulgaris, according to one source’s recollection, “Don’t fucking tell me to calm down.” The same sources say Voulgaris later professed that his motion wasn’t solely directed at Doncic, but regardless of intent, it only worsened an already inflamed relationship between the two.

Doncic, multiple league sources say, intends to sign the supermax extension — which he will be eligible for once named to this season’s All-NBA team — with Dallas, worth more than $200 million over five seasons after his rookie contract expires next summer. “I think you know the answer,” he said, smiling, when asked whether he would at last week’s exit interview. But a high-level power broker within the league says the Mavericks recognize that there’s urgency to build a contending team around Doncic after losing in the first round in each of the past two seasons. The clock is ticking.

Internally, there are concerns the front office’s dysfunction has hurt its ability to do so — and that poor relationships Doncic has with key members of the franchise, including Voulgaris, could impact his current desire to remain in Dallas long-term. The team’s most recent postseason defeat against the LA Clippers served as a direct indictment on the roster constructed around him. Can Mavericks management remedy that in time? Or, as some team sources fear, will they pay the price for the dysfunctional dynamics that exist in some corners of the organization?

Dallas announced Voulgaris’ hiring in the fall of 2018 with a title — director of quantitative research and development — that vastly understated his actual role. Multiple league and team sources tell The Athletic that Voulgaris has been the most influential voice within the Mavericks front office since joining the team, either initiating or approving virtually every transaction made over the past two seasons. Those same sources add that Voulgaris has frequently gone as far as scripting the starting lineups and rotations for longtime head coach Rick Carlisle.

That influence has spanned Doncic’s three seasons in Dallas. While he had been drafted prior to Voulgaris’ arrival — Donnie Nelson, the team’s longtime president of basketball operations, was the driving force behind trading up to acquire the Slovenian wunderkind, a process he described in detail to The Athletic last year — Cuban had sought out Voulgaris’ basketball advice in the years before putting him on the team’s payroll. As one team source says, “Mark Cuban is the most powerful person in the organization, but whoever he’s listening to is second.” Cuban was won over by Voulgaris’ vision: an analytics-driven spread pick-and-roll offense with Doncic as the focal point which he has tried implementing in the past seasons.

It’s unclear when the Cuban and Voulgaris relationship began, but their coming together is perhaps unsurprising given Cuban’s origin as a self-made tech billionaire whose first major purchase was the Mavericks. Voulgaris has never been shy about his desire to run a team. In an ESPN feature from 2013, Voulgaris is quoted as saying, “The whole process (of becoming a highly successful gambler) has led me to believe that I’d be able to put together a better team than almost any general manager in the league. If not maybe all.”

The way Voulgaris tells it — the ESPN feature is the only notable reporting ever focused on him, and he declined an interview request from The Athletic shortly after being hired — he began gambling on the NBA in the late 1990s and had made millions by the early 2000s. His success, he says, came in part from an instinctual reading of certain coaches. It finally failed him during the 2003-04 season, causing him to lose much of his gambling wealth and step away temporarily, only returning once he’d developed an analytics model that brought back his old edge. He says he did exactly that, his new model beating the odds at a rate higher than five percent. In 2009, he gave up gambling again to consult for an unnamed NBA franchise. The advisory role lasted one season; he returned to his previous life afterward and began publicly promoting himself. In the coming years, he became a well-known presence in the basketball world.

Voulgaris spent a limited amount of time around the Mavericks during his first season of employment, attending about one-quarter of the team’s games. He attended fewer games the following season, but his imprint on the team’s roster grew substantially that offseason. It was Voulgaris who initiated the team’s acquisitions of Seth Curry and Delon Wright, with multiple sources telling The Athletic that Voulgaris believed Wright should start next to Doncic. “He was the only person that believed that,” one team source says. Wright did start the season opener before being moved to a full-time bench role the following game, barely playing in the team’s first-round defeat in the 2020 postseason. He was traded that offseason.

Because Voulgaris’ influence was greater than his official role, those within the front office — and executives around the league who interacted with them — were often confused about who actually held power. “We had two general managers,” a team source says. Nelson remained the team’s president of basketball operations, a role he has held since 2005, and other executives and agents continued largely communicating with him or Cuban regarding personnel matters. Nelson continued to spearhead major moves, including trades for Kristaps Porzingis and Tim Hardaway Jr. in 2019, Josh Richardson in 2020 and J.J. Redick in 2021. But team sources say Voulgaris was supportive of the transactions — or explicitly approved them.

Multiple league and team sources point to the 2020 draft as a particularly egregious example of Voulgaris’ power, an evening one source described as “embarrassing.” Most members of the scouting department joined the team’s war room remotely through Zoom and were surprised when Voulgaris, attending in person, didn’t consult them for either of the team’s first two selections (Josh Green and Tyrell Terry) despite disagreements they held with at least one of the players he picked.

“What did (he) sell to Mark to make him believe (he) can do this?” asks one source with an intimate knowledge of the situation. “Nobody knows.”

It marked another throughline of Voulgaris’ tenure with the Mavericks: that his personality and decision making has steadily irritated and exasperated the team’s front office employees and players with both his decision making and personality over the course of the three seasons he’s been employed. “He doesn’t know how to talk to people,” that same source says.

That’s best exemplified by Dallas’ franchise player disliking him. Doncic’s strained relationship with Voulgaris predated their incident in February, multiple sources say. It wasn’t the only incident, either. This season, Voulgaris attended his first game in mid January, frequently appearing courtside at home and also traveling with them on the road in the months that followed. In mid-April, during the final minute of a home defeat to the New York Knicks, Voulgaris was seen on the game’s broadcast footage standing up and leaving with about 45 seconds remaining. While the Mavericks were trailing by 10 points at the time, they cut the deficit to six and extended the game seven more possessions before eventually losing.



Doncic noticed Voulgaris’ early departure. In the locker room after the game, multiple league and team sources say he told teammates he viewed Voulgaris leaving before the game’s conclusion as him quitting on them. Voulgaris would not attend another game the rest of the year.

Multiple team sources confirm Voulgaris remained involved in the team’s gameplans and in-game adjustments in a remote role. But Voulgaris, who earlier this season appeared likelier than not to wrest further control over the front office and perhaps even drive out Nelson entirely, now heads into a summer with his contract set to expire and uncertainty surrounding his future.

When reached for comment on Monday, Cuban defended Voulgaris’ involvement. “I really like what Bob brings to the table. He does a great job of supporting Rick and the front office with unique data insights.”

Cuban added: “Bob has a great grasp of AI and the opportunities it create for gaining an advantage. Which is important to me. But he isn’t any more influential than any other data source on the team.”

Voulgaris declined to comment for this story when reached on Sunday.

Doncic’s relationship with his head coach, Rick Carlisle, has been publicly scrutinized since joining his team. It’s expected Carlisle will return next season, multiple league sources say, something Cuban publicly voiced support for last week shortly after the first round defeat.

“Let me tell you how I look at coaching,” he told ESPN. “You don’t make a change to make a change. Unless you have someone that you know is much, much, much better, the grass is rarely greener on the other side.”

Multiple sources were surprised to see Cuban’s prompt backing of Carlisle, however, even though Cuban’s support for Carlisle has hardly wavered over the past decade. During the season, it was believed Carlisle’s future could be reconsidered following the season, partly due to a belief Doncic had tuned him out.

“It was very much up in the air,” one source with intimate knowledge of the situation said.

Sources say some players have been frustrated with Carlisle after they lost playing time despite doing exactly what they felt he had asked of them, and for stiff rotation patterns, the latter of which they viewed — correctly, team sources confirm — as being dictated directly to him by Voulgaris. Early on, Doncic also disliked Carlisle’s timeouts and frequent calling of plays.

But Carlisle, who’s “adaptable as a motherfucker,” as one league source put it, began to modify his coaching style as a way of relieving some of the pressure from this sensitive situation. Beyond Carlisle’s obvious coaching acumen, he has always been able and willing to, in essence, read the room when it came to which personal battles he could win and which ones he couldn’t. This was no different.



Doncic’s greatness, so evident so early on, clearly compelled Carlisle to consider the changing hoops politics at hand. Since being hired in May of 2008, Carlisle has had his fair share of friction with key players, in large part because of his well-known tendency to be controlling. But Rajon Rondo, this was not.

In truth, it was far closer to the difficult dynamic that he’d successfully navigated with then-point guard Jason Kidd en route to winning the franchise’s first and only title in 2011. It took an intervention of sorts to get through that friction back then, when then-Mavericks assistant coaches Tim Grgurich, Dwane Casey and Terry Stotts stepped in to tell Carlisle that he needed to loosen the reins on Kidd. In the end, of course, it was a wise and necessary move.

The championship took Carlisle’s credibility to another level in those coming years. He was, with good reason, virtually untouchable when it came to the job insecurities that most coaches face. Such is life when you reach the NBA’s mountaintop for a franchise that has never been there before.

But as Doncic started to look more and more like a modern-day Dirk Nowitzki these past three seasons — the kind of once-in-a-generation player who the Mavericks could build around for the next two decades — the landscape that surrounded Carlisle began to change. And Carlisle, quite clearly, decided to change along with it.

“You can’t win against the next Nowitzki,” one source said.

Doncic has a healthy relationship with the Mavericks organization at large. League sources say he angled to be drafted by the team in 2018, and he has been particularly complimentary of his relationship with Nowitzki, whose final season coincided with Doncic’s first. Those feelings could change if the team’s postseason struggles continue, as the Mavericks haven’t advanced past the first round since their 2011 championship run. It’s not that Doncic’s situation with the team is at a critical inflection point right now. Multiple team sources simply fear that it’s heading that direction.

Those concerns mostly center on Cuban and the decisions he makes regarding who he trusts and imbues with power. Sometimes, it’s examples like Voulgaris, a sports gambler with no league experience being given near total control of the team’s roster. Other times, it’s the relationships he doesn’t sever: The Mavericks’ front office has come to be known around the league for its long-existing power structure that, Voulgaris aside, has barely changed.

Doncic has provided the Mavericks a chance to return to prominence. He’s a generational star the team was fortunate to draft, seamlessly taking the mantle from the franchise player before him. But after beginning another offseason sooner than hoped for, the focus falls upon the organization around him: on how the dynamic that existed over the past seasons was allowed to operate in such a haphazard manner, and whether it can be fixed before it’s too late.

(Images: Getty Images – Illustration: Wes McCabe/The Athletic)

 

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cactusflinthead

cactusflinthead 27598

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All of them huh?

It’s unclear when the Cuban and Voulgaris relationship began, but their coming together is perhaps unsurprising given Cuban’s origin as a self-made tech billionaire whose first major purchase was the Mavericks. Voulgaris has never been shy about his desire to run a team. In an ESPN feature from 2013, Voulgaris is quoted as saying, “The whole process (of becoming a highly successful gambler) has led me to believe that I’d be able to put together a better team than almost any general manager in the league. If not maybe all.”

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TommyGufano

TommyGufano 6021

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13 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:
19 minutes ago, RexWilson said:
Can someone with The Atlantic subscription post Tim Cato's latest article on Bob Voulgaris? 

Was just coming to post that. Who TF is bob voulgaris, I haven't heard of him before this but I don't want him around.

his origin story as he tells it is that he had some mundane job (want to say it was some role at an airport maybe?) and he basically lived like a monk until he built up his bank account to $100k or thereabouts. He then put every penny to his name on the Lakers to win the title in either 1999-00 at something like 9:1. It hit and then he went full-time gambler. He then made a boatload of money on BTC. And then he became pretty well-followed on NBA twitter before landing the Mavs gig.

I've also heard the way he tells his origin story is bullshit and he was just some rich kid. Though I believe the BTC and NBA twitter parts hold true regardless of how he initially came into some money

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cactusflinthead

cactusflinthead 27598

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From the ESPN link

To help him build his model, Voulgaris required a specialist in the field, a mind trained in the codes of statistics, mathematics and computer science. He started the search in 2005. It took him two years and six individual tryouts -- most of those interviewees were found online, Voulgaris says, and two of them landed in NBA front offices -- to find the right person. The right person was a literal math prodigy. As a preteen, he had won national math contests; he had been the subject of awestruck articles in major newspapers. He had scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT when he was in seventh grade. At the time of his interview with Voulgaris, he had just quit a high-paying job designing algorithms for an East Coast hedge fund with a roster of Nobel-grade quant talent. Voulgaris does not wish to have the name of this math whiz appear in print, presumably out of fear that some rival will attempt to find the whiz -- let’s call him the Whiz -- and poach him. When I visit Voulgaris at his rental in the Hollywood Hills, he tells me that he’s recently made the Whiz his partner. “50-50?” I ask.

“No.”

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TommyGufano

TommyGufano 6021

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6 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

From the ESPN link

To help him build his model, Voulgaris required a specialist in the field, a mind trained in the codes of statistics, mathematics and computer science. He started the search in 2005. It took him two years and six individual tryouts -- most of those interviewees were found online, Voulgaris says, and two of them landed in NBA front offices -- to find the right person. The right person was a literal math prodigy. As a preteen, he had won national math contests; he had been the subject of awestruck articles in major newspapers. He had scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT when he was in seventh grade. At the time of his interview with Voulgaris, he had just quit a high-paying job designing algorithms for an East Coast hedge fund with a roster of Nobel-grade quant talent. Voulgaris does not wish to have the name of this math whiz appear in print, presumably out of fear that some rival will attempt to find the whiz -- let’s call him the Whiz -- and poach him. When I visit Voulgaris at his rental in the Hollywood Hills, he tells me that he’s recently made the Whiz his partner. “50-50?” I ask.

“No.”

 

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fellside

fellside 1114

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I'm slightly suspicious.  Donnie Nelson just came out and said Luka needs to do a better job getting KP involved and now we hear that everything is someone else's fault in the front office. 

I'm betting Donnie is a prominent source in that attack piece.  He needs someone else to take the fall.  I'm okay with that, but I want a new GM.

 

Notice that the article stops to clarify that Donnie was responsible for the KP trade. That reads like Donnie telling a reporter he's still the one who makes the moves but this new guy has too much power.  Donnie knows KP needs to workout for him to keep his job.

Edited by fellside
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CBT

CBT 1282

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30 minutes ago, fellside said:

I'm slightly suspicious.  Donnie Nelson just came out and said Luka needs to do a better job getting KP involved and now we hear that everything is someone else's fault in the front office. 

I'm betting Donnie is a prominent source in that attack piece.  He needs someone else to take the fall.  I'm okay with that, but I want a new GM.

 

Notice that the article stops to clarify that Donnie was responsible for the KP trade. That reads like Donnie telling a reporter he's still the one who makes the moves but this new guy has too much power.  Donnie knows KP needs to workout for him to keep his job.

fucking this. The Mavericks are incredibly lucky to have Bob. I have no doubt he's the smartest guy in every room he enters. If there is a decision on who to take him or Donnie, it's not even close. 

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GabrielsHorn

GabrielsHorn 2183

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1 hour ago, fellside said:

I'm slightly suspicious.  Donnie Nelson just came out and said Luka needs to do a better job getting KP involved and now we hear that everything is someone else's fault in the front office. 

I'm betting Donnie is a prominent source in that attack piece.  He needs someone else to take the fall.  I'm okay with that, but I want a new GM.

 

Notice that the article stops to clarify that Donnie was responsible for the KP trade. That reads like Donnie telling a reporter he's still the one who makes the moves but this new guy has too much power.  Donnie knows KP needs to workout for him to keep his job.

Yeah, this definitely feels like it was leaked from Donnie's side, which was pretty funny as the point on Curry and Wright being Haralabob's call and insinuating that Wright was a failure is not quite doing the job if trying to discredit him. 

Hell, even this line:

Quote

That influence has spanned Doncic’s three seasons in Dallas. While he had been drafted prior to Voulgaris’ arrival — Donnie Nelson, the team’s longtime president of basketball operations, was the driving force behind trading up to acquire the Slovenian wunderkind, a process he described in detail to The Athletic last year — Cuban had sought out Voulgaris’ basketball advice in the years before putting him on the team’s payroll.

Just gives it away who the source for the story is.

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Vic Mackey

Vic Mackey 47029

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1 hour ago, LurkingHorn said:

I don't think ousting him is going to fix it. You still have the three-headed monster at the top who have the best job security in the league. 

Exactly. Letting go of this dude won't do shot with the real issues. It's nothing different than the Cowboys' issues.

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Vic Mackey

Vic Mackey 47029

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11 minutes ago, Loch Ness Monster said:

It's painful for me to listen to some of Donnie interviews. Best if he stays quiet. Or better- fired.

Too many people are comfortable in the Mavs org.

Yep. It's run like a family business like the Cowboys. No matter what the results, everyone keeps their job. This team is in desperate need of a shake up at the the coach and GM. 

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Reynolds Woodcock

Reynolds Woodcock 4739

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If this is a Donnie vs. Haralabob struggle, I hope the organization sides with Haralabob. Although he spends most of his time on twitter trying to run up the price of BTC, his type of thinking is clearly where the league is/is heading.

However, if it's remotely Doncic vs. Haralabob, say goodnight to Haralabob.  

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Loch Ness Monster

Loch Ness Monster 3533

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Not sure who needs to be fired in the front office but would start with the wtf JJ Redick trade and the Josh Richardson for Seth Curry trade. 

Seems Haralabob brought in Delon Wright and Seth Curry and wanted to draft Josh Green / Tyrell Terry. Delon Wright didn't work out but those decisions don't seem too bad.

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TommyGufano

TommyGufano 6021

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11 minutes ago, Loch Ness Monster said:

Not sure who needs to be fired in the front office but would start with the wtf JJ Redick trade and the Josh Richardson for Seth Curry trade. 

Seems Haralabob brought in Delon Wright and Seth Curry and wanted to draft Josh Green / Tyrell Terry. Delon Wright didn't work out but those decisions don't seem too bad.

 

On 11/18/2020 at 9:14 PM, TommyGufano said:

Josh Richardson (or the idea of Josh Richardson, I suspect he's a guy you like less when you watch him every night) makes a ton of sense next to Luka. But Seth was possibly my fav Mav last year. Hate to lose him.

There was at least one extremely bright hoops mind who recognized in the moment we were making a mistake

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