Dallas Mavs Poised For Regular Season: Reasons For Optimism And Faith?

There is a time and a place for irrational optimism and blind faith.

The Dallas Mavs' offseason and preseason are over. The NBA regular season is about to commence. ...

Which means the time and the place for irrational optimism and blind faith are about to expire.

Following Friday's preseason closer - a 135-`111 home loss to Atlanta - first-year head coach Dusty May tossed out a couple of phrases that indicate hope as the real season is slated to start on Wednesday with a 7:30 tipoff at Houston.

May said the trust teammates are showing in one another, led by veteran Kyrie Irving is "over time, a recipe for success.''

And he said, despite the fact that this loss closed the Mavericks’ preseason at 1-3, that Dallas has experienced "some small wins for us, and (we're) looking forward to going into the regular season.”

On that last point, we can all agree. Dallas is coming off of a dismal 26-win campaign during which the emergence of Rookie of the Year standout Cooper Flagg was a lone standout.

And in 2026-27, the old-head/young-buck pairing of Irving and Flagg figures to be well worth watching.

But ...

May is in his first season as an NBA head coach after leaving Michigan. ... and there will likely be an adjustment period there as he replaces deposed boss Jason Kidd. And speaking of adjustments ... 

Said May: “I don’t know what the starting lineup is going to be quite yet. We’ll know as we get closer to game time.”

That's not necessarily a statement of Mavs strength.

Fluidity might be the key word when it comes to the other guys who surround Irving and Cooper. Maybe the early part of this season will be experimental in a sense as those two develop chemistry and as May figures out who's who among the rest of his roster members.

It's worth noting that May had said the Friday outing would serve as a "dress rehearsal'' of sorts, and that the starters at the AAC were Irving (18 points, five assists) and Flagg (26 points, 12 rebounds and four assists), plus Zaccharie Risacher, P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford.

“I thought overall they played well, and we haven’t had our lineups. We don’t even really know what our lineups are going to be, but we haven’t had them together, so it’s difficult to find the way you function within each group,” May said. “But I thought just to see Kyrie back competing like he was, I thought he made a lot of really good passes. I thought he trusted his teammates. Over time, that’s a recipe for success. ...''

Next up?

This week comes the time for optimism and faith to be stirred into that "recipe'' along with some reality.