Mavs Myth: Does Dallas 'Need' to Sign Kyrie Irving?
MAVS AND MORE - WHITT'S END 6.30.23:
Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …
*In last week’s NBA Draft the Mavs … who are we kidding? Does. Not. Matter.
Unless, that is, they re-sign Kyrie Irving. Good news that kinda sounds like bad news: The free-agent demand for Kyrie is apparently extremely limited, meaning no other teams are anxious to break the bank for him.
Also meaning, there is “the full expectation that he returns to Dallas.”
Maybe. Hopefully. But if he comes back you won't recognize Kyrie. At least in uniform. Last week we wrote about the best numbers in DFW sports history. Irving had a chance to be our greatest all-time No. 2. But his number has already been given away to rookie first-round draft pick Dereck Lively II.
If Kyrie returns, he'll do it in No. 11.
*Was flying back to DFW last weekend after a quick jaunt to Colorado and had a random thought: “We may not have any mountains, but we have more athletes.”
Sounded good. But, honestly, had no idea if it was accurate. So – these being the dead days of the NFL and the dog days of Summer – I did some digging.
Sure enough, correctamundo.
By my math, DFW has produced 401 active players in the four major sports leagues: 258 NFL, 95 MLB, 48 NBA, 0 NHL. Good for ninth in the U.S., behind the likes of No. 1 Chicago (1,061), No. 2 Los Angeles (818) and No. 6 Houston (528).
Denver wasn’t even in the Top 15. So take that, 80-degree temperatures, zero humidity and picturesque mountains. We win! (Sorta.)
*Sad truth: If we’re being honest, we don’t really care that Dak Prescott is a superb human being. In fact, give us bad 'Boys that win over CowBoy Scouts that only win off the field. Right?
We glaze over the fact that he’s the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year and that this week he was announced as the American Cancer Society’s global ambassador. Instead, we fixate on the fact that he’s no longer a Top 100 player, much less a Top 10 quarterback. Charity schmarity. All we wanna know is if/when he’s going to correct his debilitating turnover habit. To borrow – and butcher – a Billy Joel lyric: We’d rather win with the sinners than lose with the saints.
It's as though Dak is too good to be tr ... trusted.
*As a kid going to Rangers games at old Arlington Stadium, one of my biggest joys was getting a paper All-Star ballot and taking all dang game to choose my favorite players and then somehow punch out the little perforated box beside their names. One fan. One ballot. You could get more ballots if you begged, but my old-school Dad frowned upon it. Fast-forward to 2023’s All-Star voting. Yuck. The Rangers – like every team – flood their social media with repeated urges to vote for their players. Feels like some of the best players make the game, but also some of the players simply on the best marketed teams. I mean, the Rangers are vastly improved this season, but … four All-Star starters?
*Have to admit, Boulder Canyon in Colorado is gorgeous. I love that right-wing rednecks live next to Pride flag liberals … in harmony. But I also cherish Texas’ heat. Yes, the triple-digit heat. It’s in my DNA, I guess. Give me 102 degrees over 32 any day.
*Hot.
*Not.
*Another plane ponder I had: DFW has never celebrated a pro championship clinched at “home.” The Mavs won their title in Miami. The Stars lifted their Stanley Cup in the early morning hours in Buffalo. The Cowboys, of course, won their five Super Bowls at neutral sites. And the Rangers, well … Closest we’ve been is a clinch of a conference championship on home soil, done by the Cowboys (4), Stars (2), Rangers (2) and Mavs (1). But here’s the nauseating part of the equation: The Green Bay Packers, Miami Heat, New Jersey Devils and San Francisco Giants have all hoisted trophies in our stadiums.
*Happy (early) Fourth of July! Weird that fireworks haven’t really evolved in the last, oh, 20 years. Still some invisible booms. Lotsa different colors. And always an “oooh … ahhhh” grand finale. But I’m betting you couldn’t differentiate what you’ll see in the sky this weekend from what they saw in the sky 20 years ago.
*The “Oops Option”: New England Patriots’ player Jack Jones getting arrested for attempting to carry guns onto an airplane reminded me of the time the coach of the Cowboys did the same. In 1997, Barry Switzer had a loaded pistol in his carry-on bag as the team boarded its flight from DFW to Austin for training camp. His excuse: “I took my bag in security and wondered why my bag had stopped. I’m waiting, having a conversation with people. I look up, and there’s two police officers standing beside me. I look at them, and they look at me with a serious look. All of a sudden I realize, ‘My God, I didn’t take that pistol out of my bag’.”
*Obviously I’m going to live forever and never stop writing. Duh. But if and when I downshift into late-life career I’m either going to rake seaweed on the white-sand beach of a five-star beach resort … or be a mailman. Wanna be outside. Get some exercise. Just enough public interaction to keep me from deteriorating into an old, grumpy hermit. Torn. Again, I embrace the heat, but after what happened in Lakewood recently perhaps I should go find my rake.
*Okay, assuming the Mavs retain Kyrie … draft choices Lively and Olivier-Maxence Prosper are still underwhelming. I’m an admitted college hoops junkie. Watched lots of Duke and Marquette games last season and neither of those players stood out. Duke’s best project was/is Kyle Filipowski, not the one-and-done Lively.
I know the Mavs are desperate for their first legit rim protector since Tyson Chandler, and I guess the 7-foot-1 Lively could develop into that. Prosper was merely a role player – third- or fourth-best starter – on Shaka Smart’s deep team at Marquette. What the Mavs do have now is this: Youth. Lively is 19. Prosper 20. Josh Green 22. Jaden Hardy 20.
You’d think Luka Doncic would be “old” by the time all – or any – of those mature into co-stars, but we forget he’s still only 24.
*Got a buddy whose A/C went out this week. At 6 p.m. one night it was 91 degrees … inside his house. Cost of a new unit: $10,000. I kid you not. And the kicker: His house is only 1,100 square feet.
*I wasn’t at David Clyde’s debut with the Rangers in 1973, but I do remember being in a frenzy about it. I went to Duncanville High School, which was a baseball power. But nothing topped the rumors coming out of Houston Westchester and a senior pitcher who was the most mind-boggling, dominant pitcher in Texas high school history. Clyde went 18-0 as a senior, throwing five no-hitters (two perfect games), allowing only three earned runs in 148 innings and striking out 328 to only 18 walks. He was the “next Sandy Koufax”, even wearing a matching No. 32 for the Rangers. You know the rest of the sad saga, as ownership greed first exploited, then eventually ruined him. Can’t believe it’s been 50 years.
*Toss this dilemma out to your friends and family while you wait for the fireworks to start: Would you rather die … imploding from pressure in a cramped submarine, or being sucked into a jet engine? Both are (hopefully) instantaneous, but give me the jet engine because being inside that sub two miles underwater would’ve freaked me out even before catastrophe struck. You’re welcome.
*This Weekend? Saturday let’s lunch with Big Brothers Big Sisters lil’ bro Ja before gawking at some downtown Dallas fireworks. Sunday let’s hit the tennis court, then jump in the swimming pool. As always, don’t be a stranger.
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