Theo Pinson commandeered the season’s final postgame news conference, sitting down at the dais of the Chase Center’s visiting media area and asking for questions. The fourth-year veteran, whose infectious positivity caused Jason Kidd to describe him earlier this season as the team’s “MVP,” immediately made it clear the Mavericks’ season-ending 120-110 defeat in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals wasn’t some somber occasion.
Despite Pinson wearing all black, the same color as the Warriors uniforms, this was no funeral.
“Man, this team, we had a really good time together,” Pinson said. “There’s not one team that had more fun together. That’s one thing: I’ll never forget these guys, ever.”
To which Tim Hardaway Jr., who had followed Pinson into the media zone, shouted: “Boy, get off the stage. It’s time to go.”
It’s time to go. Those four words can describe every moment that led to and represented this spectacular season from the Mavericks. They forayed further into the postseason than anyone expected and now go more confidently into the future than after any season in the past decade. About this time last year, longtime general manager Donnie Nelson was fired, and established head coach Rick Carlisle subsequently chose to depart. It was a jarring change to tenured figures amidst internal turmoil, but it’s unquestionable, looking back, that it was needed. That it was time to go.
It’s difficult to remember or describe just how bleak it felt this past December, when the Mavericks’ role players dropped into health and safety protocols indiscriminately and the roster bulged with temporary signings — some of whom played only one game before dropping into those protocols themselves. Dallas emerged from that month one game under .500, and a look back at those weeks reveals the team’s turnaround had slowly taken place. In fact, Jalen Brunson told me earlier this season he felt like the team’s defensive principles truly took hold that month, when the players were forced to become the teachers, instructing the temporary pupils who were joining about how this team wanted to play. But it might not have mattered if the results couldn’t overwrite the team’s uninspired start. It was time to go.
And go they did, winning 10 of the next 11 games. Kristaps Porziņģis was sidelined starting with January’s final game, and the team’s surge continued without him. That emboldened the new-look front office, led by Nico Harrison and Michael Finley, to commit to moving forward without Porziņģis. Once they determined he wouldn’t be part of the future, it was only logical they move on from him as soon as possible. There were no celebrations when Porziņģis was traded, and no victory laps, although the team believed, correctly, it wouldn’t take any step back. But it was time to go.
Dallas lost Luka Dončić on the season’s final day to an injury that caused him to miss the first round’s opening three games. For Brunson, it was time to go off. The team then caved in the first two games against the Phoenix Suns in the conference semifinals, only to roar back to a seven-game series victory. Then there was the conference-finals series against Golden State, an opponent the Mavericks had earned their place to compete against. The series could have been more competitive, yes, but the Warriors ultimately were better. After everything that transpired this season, after turmoil and bleakness and reconstruction and uncertainty had pulsed through the past year, the season was over Thursday — and it was time to go.
But though the Mavericks weren’t resigned to this particular ending, there was real joy in the season that took place. An understanding that something meaningful had been accomplished. An acknowledgement that the difficulties overcome were worthwhile, that whatever’s forthcoming is promising, that this journey, as Kidd often has said, is just starting.
It was time to go, and it is time to go, wherever the future may take them.
It should be said that futures aren’t guaranteed, that progress isn’t always linear. Dallas was one of this season’s best four teams, but this season isn’t the next, and each consecutive year carries change and foibles that cannot be foreseen in this conference-finals run’s wake. Do the Mavericks need a second star, or more talented role players? A two-way center, or a proper playmaking wing? A Slovenian who runs suicides all summer? Or, an award-winning leading man tasked with slightly less screen time? A better bench? Or just further development?
These are all questions that existed before this season’s conclusion but now appear at the forefront with more urgency. They should be discussed, both in the team’s offices and even on this website, with the appropriate depth and care required. (The conversations within the team are the meaningful ones, to be clear, but rest assured, I’ll be talking plenty about these questions in the coming weeks and months.) It seems increasingly clear Brunson will return, but what happens after that? What’s the future of the team past this offseason? What have we learned from Kidd’s coaching identity that will carry over into the coming season? So on, and so forth, the questions continue.
But right now, at this moment, what’s important is acknowledging what the 2021-22 Mavericks accomplished. It’s not what was expected of them, and it’s further than the goals established at this year’s beginning. It didn’t seem plausible at this season’s lowest moments, nor was it ever expected to be carried out in the manner it did. But Dallas did exactly that, with joy and togetherness that exuded from every aspect of this team.
It was a hell of a season. It’s time to look forward only once you fully appreciate one final look back.
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(Photo of Luka Dončić: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
