Yogi Ferrell: The latest from the Dallas Mavericks’ bag of tricks
At the beginning of the 2016–17 season, it looked like the Dallas Mavericks’ time as a playoff contender was over. However, latest addition Yogi Ferrell has helped bring the Mavs back to relevancy.
I was in elementary school the last time I saw the Dallas Mavericks finish a season with a losing record. Since that season (1999–2000), they’ve produced one of the most incredible runs of consistency in professional sports. The Mavericks have had sixteen consecutive seasons at 0.500 or better, thanks in part to the timeless Dirk Nowitzki and more recently, coach/wizard Rick Carlisle.
Their knack for unearthing pleasantly surprising players over the years has also played a role. Whether it’s Steve Nash coming into his own after arriving in Dallas, Josh Howard becoming an All-Star from the bottom of the NBA Draft’s first round, or Jason Kidd somehow becoming a dangerous deep threat late in his career (42.5% on 5.2 3PA/game at age 36?!), the Mavericks have seemingly always gotten key contributions from unexpected players to stay relevant in the Western Conference playoff conversation without having to rebuild in earnest.
It’s a deep bag of tricks they have over there in Dallas.
But all good things must come to an end, and this season, it looked like from the start, the Mavs’ party was over. They lost their first five games and 13 of their first 15. Dallas was in the bottom five of almost all relevant metrics of team strength. Perhaps it was a sign that they’d finally have to actually tear things down and create a new vision for life after Nowitzki.
In the past three weeks, however, the Mavericks have found new life. They’ve won 9 of their last 12, including back-to-back wins at San Antonio and versus Cleveland. The playoffs are somehow within arm’s length now (two games behind the Denver Nuggets). It has been a remarkable shift for a team that was dead in the water less than a month ago.
How have they turned things around? Well, there’s never just one thing, but the Mavericks did reach into their bag of tricks again. This time, they pulled out the immaculately-named undrafted rookie point guard Yogi Ferrell.
Ferrell has only played four games in Dallas so far, filling in for the injured Deron Williams and J.J. Barea. But, he has already provided a shot in the arm to the Mavericks’ offense. He started in the January 29 win against the Spurs after literally starting to learn the playbook that morning, then showed no fear in posting 19 points against All-Star starter Kyrie Irving the very next day.
However, if you want to see what really has everyone buzzing about Yogi, it was his performance on Friday night against the Portland Trail Blazers. Holy sh*t — no one saw THAT coming this quickly.
There are a lot of teams that could use dynamic off-the-dribble shot-making like what Ferrell has been providing, so the Mavericks smartly offered him a two-year contract that he’ll sign when his ten-day contract expires on Tuesday. Going nine of eleven from three has a way of getting people to hand over cash.
Ferrell’s rise has been awesome, but it wasn’t completely out of nowhere, if you were paying attention. He was a standout at Indiana University, haunting the dreams of many Big Ten fans (like yours truly, who attended Michigan). He’s had moments such as this December 2016 D-League game, in which he looked positively Steph-like:
But NBA teams generally avoided him for some reason. Perhaps it was his height (6-foot-nothin’), or concerns about how his game would translate to the NBA (we’ve seen how it often goes with high-scoring college players). Whatever the reason was, it took an emergency in Brooklyn for the Nets to call him up (point guards Jeremy Lin, Greivis Vasquez, and Isaiah Whitehead all getting injured). Even the Mavericks only resorted to him after Pierre Jackson, their first 10-day fill-in point guard, went down.
Of course, there’s always the chance that Ferrell is a flash in the pan. After all, it’s been four games. He’s played 151 minutes in Dallas. I’ve seen Dirk defensive closeouts this year that have taken longer than that. Plus, he didn’t play well enough earlier this year for the freakin’ Nets to keep him around. Then again, no one looks good when playing for the Nets — fair. Anyway, point is that we’re at the Small Sample Size Theater, and we’re still watching previews for Why Him.
However, unlike watching Why Him, watching Yogi play is something you won’t regret. If Yogi can keep shooting and hustling like he’s been doing for the past week, he’s going to have the whole league kicking themselves for not scooping him up when they could have. He might hold onto the starting gig when Deron Williams and/or J.J. Barea return to full health. Hell, he might even get Deron shipped to Cleveland so that LeBron can get that playmaker he’s been talking about.
Extending that streak of winning seasons is going to be difficult, no matter how well Ferrell plays. Dallas is 20–30 (0.400) thanks to the sheer mathematical damage of their early-season struggles. Maybe that streak ends this year.
But even if it does, Yogi has made the Mavericks exciting and relevant again. Talk about a bag of tricks.
