We know for a fact Mark Cuban watches every Dallas Mavericks game. He sees how they are playing. He’s smart. He can’t be impressed.
But he has an interesting theory, one he expounded upon on Jason Terry’s radio show (via ESPNDallas) as to why the Mavericks can win the West.
“Half the teams are sucking wind, and half the teams are playing well,” Cuban said. “… The Lakers are getting torched at home worse than we’ve been the last few games. Oklahoma City has been playing well, but they haven’t had an injury yet — literally, not one single injury of any consequence — so it’ll be interesting to see if they can keep that up. Utah is playing well, but not as well with [Andrei] Kirilenko out. Denver is struggling. San Antonio is playing well most of the time, when Manu [Ginobili] scores 40.
“You look down the list, and nobody’s afraid of anybody. Nobody looks at us and says, ‘We’re afraid of them.’ Look, if we dial in, we know we can kill anybody. It’s just a question of focus.”
Right now the only two people high on the Mavs are Cuban and Dirk, but they are the two voices that count in that organization. So we listen.
The thing is, it’s just a question of focus for eight teams in the West. A healthy focused Denver, dangerous. A focused Jazz team, dangerous. A Lakers team focused three quarters of the time, dangerous.
It is wide open in the West. There will be an upset or five. But in the end, as it always it, the outcome will be about matchups and execution. Call that focus if you like.
