Dispatch from Fail City

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The other night, after the New Jersey Nutz Nets lost their 17th consecutive game to start the season to tie the all-time record, I ran into Snizza at the local biergarten. "You know who the Nets play next?", he asked.

Of course. It's the Fail City Mavericks. They'd get a quick tune-up on Monday against the hopeless Sixers at home, then on Wednesday, they'd travel to the swamp, be handed a priceless Faberge egg to hold for three and a half hours, and be screamed at the entire time to make sure not to break it. Exceedingly easy task without the noise and attention.

"I'm not saying they're gonna lose that game," I said. "Just get your head around the idea."

After all, it's the NBA in Dallas -- "Where How in the jolly fuck did we lose that fucking game? Happens."

The Mavericks are in first place in their division at 13-5 despite injuries to Josh Howard (still out), Shawn Marion, and Erick Dampier.* But they're still not taken seriously in most quarters, and they're the object of what I see as a disproportionate amount of scorn around the league. And a lot of it stems from the roundly derided trade of Devin Harris and a bunch of spare parts and cash to New Jersey for Jason Kidd two seasons ago.

*Laugh it up, fucker. Half the teams in the Association would take him as their starting center in a heartbeat.

Last season, Harris lit up the Mavericks for 41 points and 13 assists in a game witnessed by a great deal of fans and media types thanks to the trade the previous season. The Mavs came off looking like stooges and Harris made the All-Star team.

Now the Kidd/Harris trade isn't mentioned much anymore because it's become clear it was at least fair, if not an outright win for the Mavericks. Although the Mavericks haven't come close to a championship with Kidd, the Nets missed the playoffs entirely last season and are on the brink of historic ineptitude this season, and Kidd has a big hand in keeping the Mavericks competitive enough that the 2010 first-round draft pick they'll have to send to Joisey to complete the deal won't be worth much.*

*In the NBA draft, usually only the first 10-12 picks are worth a darn; the rest are basically chattel. You may get lucky with a Howard or a Marion, but teams are almost always willing to dump lower picks -- the players you draft don't bring any more to the table than a low-salaried veteran who'll cost less.

On no level are the Nets a better team than the Mavericks, and frankly it's debatable whether Harris will be a better player than Kidd at any point before Kidd files his retirement papers -- and furthermore, it's extremely likely the two first-rounders the Mavs sent to Jersey won't produce a franchise centerpiece. However, it's a virtual certainty that a single loss in an 82-game season to the 0-17 Nets will bring out every knucklehead in the sports-blather realm to point at the Mavs and laugh.

The Mavericks are like an honors student who trips over the microphone cord and face-plants at graduation.*

*Plaschke paragraph!

And of course, if the Nets do beat the Mavs, it's likely that it'll be on Harris' back, representing the only personnel advantage the Nets have over the Mavs: Kidd can't keep up with quick, scoring point guards. It'll be too easy for the sports-blather realm to resist.

I hope you're already making peace with a potential loss tonight, Mavs fans. And a reprisal of the criticism, cheap-shots, and name-calling that cropped up when your team signed Dampier, when they got rooked out of a championship in '06, when they lost to an 8 seed in Oakland, when they gave up Harris for Kidd, when Mark Cuban got himself dragged into a public pissing match with Don Nelson, and on and on and on.

Update: Just more than a quarter into the game, the Mavs have turned the ball over seven times, thus making my Faberge egg analogy somewhat less ridiculous.

Update II: At the half, after catching fire in the second quarter, the Mavericks are shooting 80.6% from the floor, including seven three-pointers. They have scored 77 points IN THE FIRST HALF and lead 77-50. Whatever the opposite of choking is, that is what the Mavericks are doing. I should just delete this goddamn POOOAST!!!, but maybe it'll be useful as a sort of time capsule.

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