Dallas Mavericks: 3 reasons you won’t want to miss a game this year

Competition at every turn

In the NBA, every team will play every other team at least twice in the regular season. However, because the league is separated into Eastern and Western Conferences, each team from the West only plays East teams twice and vice versa. This leaves 52 games to be played within your own conference. Dallas is in the Western Conference, the much stronger of the two.

The West has been stronger than the East for some time now really. The last time the Eastern Conference had the team favored to win the NBA Finals was probably in 2013-14 when the Miami Heat and their big three lost to the San Antonio Spurs in 5 games. Since then, the East has won two NBA championships, both as the heavy underdog.

The reason I write this is because it helps gain a picture of just how much stronger the West is than the East on a regular basis. The Mavs have to play their 14 Western Conference foes a total of 52 times. Of those 14 teams, you can make the argument that 11 of them have either gotten better or stayed the same from last year (12 if you include the Mavs).

The only teams that really took a step backwards, in my opinion, are the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Golden State Warriors and maybe the New Orleans Pelicans, although that one is kind of up in the air. The Warriors being on this list is fairly misrepresentative as well.

Since the Mavs had one of the worst records in the West last year, you can see that every game is going to be difficult in the Western Conference. 52 games is a pretty sizable portion of the schedule and with only a couple of teams being likely wins, this could prove to be one of the Mavericks biggest tests in franchise history.

The Mavs are going to be a fun team this year, that much is almost a given. Whether or not they make the playoffs is up in the air, but the fact that there is a reasonable chance is an exciting new change from the past few years.