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It Turns Out The Mavericks Were Smart To Tank For Dereck Lively II

Dereck Lively II
It turns out the Mavericks were smart to tank for Dereck Lively II. Is anybody interested in taking a trip down memory lane? (Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports)

It Turns Out The Mavericks Were Smart To Tank For Dereck Lively II

Shout out to Awful Announcing. What an absolutely glorious article this was. It truly epitomizes the problem with sports media today. People run their mouths and then pretend the incorrect thing they said never happened. I understand that you, the casual viewer of basketball, think Bill Simmons is smart when in reality he’s just a creepy dude who cranks it to the trade machine online. In the least surprising turn of events ever, it turns out tanking for Dereck Lively II turned out to be a really smart thing by the Mavericks.

Side note: By the way, if you’re looking for a Celtics angle to this exact same story with the Finals coming up… does anybody remember the time Bill Simmons bashed the Celtics for drafting Jaylen Brown and then instead of admitting he was wrong jerked it to the trade machine to try to get him traded?

Sorry… moving on now.

Let’s go back to about a year ago. Everybody remembers this, right? If you don’t know what I’m referring to, let me give you this crash course real quick.

A: This all goes back to the Kristaps Porzingis trade (who the Mavericks are about to play in the Finals. Side note: I have no idea if there is a god but you can’t tell me something isn’t out there pulling the strings of the universe because the Finals being Celtics vs. Kyrie to hang Banner 18 couldn’t be more hilarious. That’s while Porzingis getting his under-the-radar revenge game).

The last pick going out to the Knicks was top-ten protected. Long story short; the Mavericks shut it down a tad early in a year where they were never going to win the Finals. It was a lost season and they needed to regroup to build the right team around Luka and Kyrie. The smart people already knew this.

I have a small recap article defending the Mavericks if you want to check that out here. At the end of the day, the Mavericks landed pick ten, traded down two spots with OKC, and then selected Dereck Lively II. I just want it on record that Trey defended the Mavericks for what they did to pick ten and avoid giving the Knicks their pick. I’m going to link it twice just so that you read it.

Can we just be honest right now? Are the Mavericks still here without Lively?

By the way, Trey was also a fan of Lively in the draft. none of this is hindsight bias. I wrote his NBA Draft profile and don’t even watch college basketball anymore outside of the tournament. I loved him coming out of Duke.

The Mavericks should be praised for what they did to get their hands on Dereck Lively II. Except nobody will do it because they don’t want to be held accountable for the idiotic things they said just one year ago.

This is the problem with sports media and it’s exactly why I can’t wait to burn this industry to the ground. The day of reckoning is coming.

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