Tim Cato
speaker
58 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Tim Cato’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
I'm doing good, man. It's good to still be back. Glad I still get invited back, even though we are not officially co-workers. But spiritually at heart, you guys are always co-workers to me.
I mean, you can make an argument that some of the issues is that they're not after the trade deadline. One commonality, one common trend between both of the deep playoff runs that Dallas made was that they came together late in the season. And, you know, so that's three seasons ago when they went to the conference finals. And of course, last season when they went to the finals.
This is a team that, for some reason, takes a while to really put it together. Now, this season was supposed to be different. This season, they came in with an offseason that was supposed to give Dallas the deepest team that they have had. Injuries eroded at that right away. Dante Exum remains out. P.J. Washington has missed games. Maxi Kleba...
who is an injury-prone player, to be fair, as is Exum. He has missed time. Derek Lively missed a few games. Kyrie Irving, in the loss and the defeat on Thursday night against Utah, the fourth straight, he missed. That said, good teams still win without some of their rotation players. It's not like Luka and Kyrie have been missing the majority of these games.
And so, yeah, it is absolutely a disappointing season thus far, a disappointing start for Dallas. I... I'm not quite at the point where I am willing to change my expectations for the team coming into the season. But this is a troubling trend that they keep running into where they start very slow. You know, the defense is top 10. The offense is top 10. These are usually marks of a title contender.
As you guys said, it's been a combined eight points that they've lost these four straight games. Just a little bit here or there could have easily changed something. But that's not really an excuse. I just think Dallas is going to get to the same point that they often find themselves in under Jason Kidd. They're trying to make up ground. They're behind and they're trying to catch up.
We've seen that happen. I still believe that's going to happen. But trying to catch up, trying to get back to where they need to be, that is a recipe for Luka to overextend himself, to play too many minutes, to be tired, exhausted, to have injury issues, nagging stuff that he just can't quite get rid of.
going into the postseason it's a recipe for Dallas to not have you know home court advantage in the first round and it all just adds up to you know a team that can still put it together a team that's still very talented and a team that I believe will end up showing that talent but not in a way that is conducive to them finally getting over this hump and and you know really being a team that is feared going into the playoffs not just one that is playing from behind and so
Yeah, disappointment is the right word. And as much as we can talk more about what needs to come together, the fault really lies kind of a little bit of everywhere. Every single player, the coaching staff, there's a lot of blame to go around right now.
So he is playing off the ball more. I do think that the touches and the time of possession, it's a little bit skewed because some of that off the ball is just that he's not bringing the ball up the court. And when he brings the ball up the court about, let's say, 70% of the time when he's on the court, 80% of the time when he's on the court in previous seasons, now it's down to about 50%.
that is going to have a material impact on just time of possession. You know, that's about eight seconds, uh, you know, a dozen times per game and that, that, that will show in the stats. That said, a big part of, of Dallas's off season was to bring in more ball handlers and to bring in more shot creators.
Uh, Najee Marshall has been someone who has been completely entrusted to, to dribble, to drive, to, to bring the ball up the court, to orchestrate fast breaks. Um, You know, they've been playing a lot of guards. Jaden Hardy, Spencer Dinwiddie, Quentin Grimes at times has been, you know, entrusted to handle the ball. And, you know, Dante Axum, when he's healthy, is going to be another player.
And so I think a lot of this idea, or to my understanding... was to give Luka a little bit more time to rest or to just not be quite as involved in the offense at every waking moment. To make him feel like if he doesn't have the ball in his hands on offense, and if Kyrie Irving isn't out there, then the offense can still generate decent shots without him.
And in turn, that would allow him, yes, maybe to an extent, become a better off-ball offensive player. I think that is a good, important thing that he should do in his career. I think that's a positive. But it's also to help him on the defensive end, to help bring his minutes down a little bit and just allow him to be a more complete player overall. And we're not saying that.
We've seen the defense, you know, we've seen Luka play good defense. And when he is fully locked into playing good defense, he can be an average, maybe a bit above average defender. His problem has always been doing that possession after possession after possession. And there have been far too many lapses. And it's not just getting blown by, and it's not just losing his man.
There's been some very high-profile moments of that happening. But one of the Mavericks' biggest issues so far this season is giving up offensive rebounds. The league average this season for offensive rebounds is just under 11. And in, what, 10 of the Mavericks' 12 games thus far, they've allowed 12 offensive rebounds or more. So they're just...
So you're just conceding second chance points over and over and over again. And the defense is, you know, statistically it's holding up despite that. But it's really, you know, it's the second chance points that are really killing them.
And, you know, when you play with Luka often as your second tallest player, and we know that he's a fantastic rebounder, he has to be locked into that side as well. You can't miss box outs. You can't just stand there. You know, and hope the ball falls to him because, you know, this is kind of the way Dallas has committed to playing, you know, the power forward on this team.
If not Luca, if Luca isn't the tallest guy, it's PJ Washington. You know, this is not a team that is running out a seven footer and a 6'10 player at the same time. And so. It's been very frustrating for Mavericks fans. It's been very frustrating for Luka fans because Luka can be this all-generational player. And his offensive game hasn't quite been there. That's been another issue.
He's not shooting quite as well. He just doesn't look like he's moving at 100%. And I don't think it's injury specifically. I think he just is getting back into the rhythm of the season. But on the defensive end, his buy-in has – it's too fleeting. It comes and goes way too often.
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