It's 20 days and counting

The Mavericks will open up training camp on Sept. 28 at SMU’s
wonderful practice facility. It’ll be here before you know it.
 
True, the Rangers are headed to the playoffs in spite of
themselves and the Cowboys haven’t even played a real game yet, but the
NBA season is just around the corner. Media day is on the 27th and
it’ll be an interesting camp indeed with Tyson Chandler trying to find
his role and coach Rick Carlisle getting his first training camp with Caron
Butler and Brendan Haywood.
 
Starting later this week, we’ll begin taking a sneak
peek here on the blog at some of the issues that await the Mavericks as they
get ready for camp.
 
In the meantime, here’s a little factoid for you to
chew on: When the Mavericks acquired Jason Kidd at the trade deadline in 2008,
they were first-round fodder in the playoffs. The following year, they got to
the second round, which admittedly still isn’t the ultimate goal.
 
But that should mean the expectations are reasonable for the
Mavericks to have a better fate this season than the first-round ousting they
took with Butler and Haywood joining the team in midseason.
 
History has proven that those sorts of transactions rarely
produce big returns right away. It takes time.
 
OK, so that’s a glass-half-full outlook. After a
restful August, we’re in a gracious mood here at the blog.
 
We’ll commence with the flip side of that in the
coming weeks.