Thanksgiving Mailbag: Devour these goodies via shooting, tiresome trading scenarios


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Welcome to the Thanksgiving edition of the Mavericks’ mailbag.

We forego the weekly jokes because I have a true story to tell.

I was ready to have the traditional Texas Turkey Festival – turkey tacos and cornbread quesadillas.

Then I got a call from the daughter. She and her above average husband and my above average cool grandson have just moved into their new house and decided to christen it with a family Thanksgiving celebration.

When suddenly a ton of Christmas dinner was stuffed into the freezer at the casa northeast of Dallas, I packed the truck with my wife and children and it went to Oklahoma. (Yes, I know. I tried to raise the oldest daughter properly. But she ended up north of the Red River anyway. Children.)

Anyway, this is our Thanksgiving version of the mailbag, delivered to you from Thunder Territory and before the soccer ball starts, so you can digest it and get all the bad taste out of your mouth before heading to your glorious festival sit down.

Enjoy.

From D-WIL: And the Mavericks still think they’re a good 3-point shooting team, despite years of evidence to the contrary. And yet they continue to keep them. Bad coaching? Blame the player? Doing the same bad thing over and over and expecting different / winning results is insane. More 3-point attempts is not the solution.

SEFKO: Come on, Deron. As a boxer, you know that you have to rely on your movements to work – sooner or later. Oh wait, I thought this was Deron Williams. Never mind. Also, what I’d say to the other D-Wil would be that the Mavericks and, oh, about 29 other teams shooting more 3-pointers than they should be, can blame the state of the NBA.

It’s a 3-point league. That’s all. The middle distance game doesn’t work for many coaches and even fewer players. That’s why we’re big fans of DeMar DeRozan here at Mailbag. He usually shoots inside the bow and still nobody can stop him. Anyway, the Mavericks have some good 3 point shooters and some to avoid like the plague. Like any other team in the league. I’m afraid we’ll have to endure that first.

From LYLE S .: Is anyone talking about how bad Reggie Bullock was?

SEFKO: Okay, Bullock shoots 28.4 percent from 3-point range. He is a 38.7 percent Sagittarius. And that over eight seasons. Do you really think it will drop 10 percentage points for a season? Come on. The water level will return to normal at some point. He’s been too good a marksman for too long to forget how to do it overnight. If I were a bettor I would take your bet that he would win you before the all-star break, even if you didn’t ask that. I just say ‘.

From D-MONEY: Dwight Powell shouldn’t start if Luka is out. Kidd needs to make an adjustment but I doubt he will. He has to start Maxi instead of Powell.

SEFKO: Oh you of little faith. Kidd made the change after I received your email and before we published it. Here you go. He just didn’t use Maxi Kleber. He put Willie Cauley-Stein on for Dwight Powell on Tuesday. Said Powell didn’t do anything wrong. Only needed one move after three defeats. And i agree. But I’m not sure if it really matters whether Luka is outside or not. The Mavericks will have a hard time winning games without Luka, no matter who else is on the floor.

From VINNY H .: I still believe Ben Simmons’ agent will land him with the Mavericks. Why not use some of our centers and others (Tim Hardaway Jr., Reggie Bullock, Sterling Brown) to get Simmons and Robert Covington Jr.

SEFKO: Pooh. I’m tired of the impossible trading scenarios. In your opinion, just because the numbers add up on a trading machine, does that make sense? Listen, first of all, any major piece deal the Mavericks might make is going to involve Jalen Brunson. Pure and simple. Teams love him. And the Mavericks too. It’s the chip everyone wants.

If you don’t include him and Hardaway as cornerstones, you won’t get very far in any trading conversation with a team. So stop by me in January and we’ll get a better sense of the real Mavericks position. They may be 20-14 years old by then if they keep winning at their current pace. That won’t be enough for some fans. But it would be pretty solid with more than half the season left.

From SAM W .: I really hope Jalen’s injury isn’t the metatarsal fracture feared. JB played so well.

SEFKO: We haven’t heard anything yet, so no speculation at this point. What I can say is it didn’t look good when he barely got any weight on it in the second quarter on Tuesday.

The good news is that he was on the bench in the second half to give moral support to his teammates. That’s a great sign. Brunson had a serious ruptured labrum injury a few seasons ago. But he’s a tough guy. Unless it’s something significant, I suspect it won’t be out for long.

From TOM T .: When (if?) The Mavericks get completely well, how do you see the rotation break down?

SEFKO: That is a well-worded question. Is an NBA team ever really completely healthy? But let’s say we’re in a fantasy world and the masterful athletic training staff (Dionne Calhoun, Casey Smith, Heather Mau, etc.) get the Mavericks to a point where they’ve got every arrow in their quiver. We know the starters will be Luka, KP, Hardaway, DFS and probably Maxi Kleber. This last name is that I will read the tea leaves in the future.

The top reserves? Brunson, Powell, Cauley-Stein, Bullock, Ntilikina, and Sterling Brown.

That gives Jason Kidd 11 solid players to choose from each night.

After all that, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there were an as-yet-unknown addition to this group. Stay tuned.

And Happy Thanksgiving.

Twitter: @ESefko

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