Amar’e Stoudemire, wearing an outrageous jacket, rips the Mavericks

The Dallas Mavericks have split their last 30 games. The Dallas Mavericks were well on their way toward setting an NBA record for offensive efficiency during a span that bled over the first six weeks of the 2014-15 season. The Dallas Mavericks feature a lead guard in Rajon Rondo that has missed 27 of 35 free throws as a member of the team, all while noticeably feuding with his coach. The Dallas Mavericks are good enough that several aging veterans still consider the outfit as a championship contender worth hopping on.

[DraftKings: FREE Entry to a Huge Cash Fantasy Basketball Contest with First Deposit. Draft your team now.]

The Dallas Mavericks contain multitudes, and one of those aging veterans has just about had enough. Scoring center Amar’e Stoudemire, usually an agreeable sort, laid into his team’s effort following the squad’s 127-94 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday.

Watch Stoudemire’s take:

For those that are at work, via ESPN Dallas:

“We’ve got to pay more attention to detail. We can’t be making minor mistakes. We made mistakes that second-year players or rookie players make in this league. We’re a veteran team. Guys are 13, 14, 16 years in this league. We should know better than that.

“We should be a much better team than what we showed out there. This is a team that’s competing for a championship that we played against. We should have stepped up to the challenge of competing with these guys and we backed down.”

[…]

“I came here to win, and we’re [4 ½] games out of being out of the playoffs, which is unacceptable,” Stoudemire said after the Cleveland Cavaliers cruised to a 127-94 win over the Mavs at the American Airlines Center. “This is something we can’t accept. We’ve got to find a way to refocus. We’ve got to key into the details of the game of basketball.

“We can’t cheat the game. We can’t screw around in games and practices and joke around all the time and figure we’re going to win games. This is the pros. It’s the highest level of basketball. We’ve got to act that way.”

Stoudemire managed 15 points on 7-11 shooting in just under 20 minutes in the loss, and he didn’t exactly do his damage in garbage time. The veteran has been stellar in his time with the Mavericks, contributing … oh wait … everyone wants to talk about the outfit Amar’e was wearing when he slammed his team’s effort, hold on …

… OK, have we got that out of the way? Stoudemire wore a military-styled outfit that was popular in England during the late 1960s. Who the hell cares?

People in this league have ridiculous tattoos, ridiculous haircuts, cars they don’t need, houses they never sleep in, scouting reports they ignore, free and healthy food they won’t consume, and open teammates they’ll never pass to. We’re going to dismiss Amar’e Stoudemire’s comments because he’s dressing like a member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience?

An Entourage-styled hat and sunglasses worn indoors? I get it, they check off on a couple of boxes you’d never want to fill in. The New York Knicks paid Stoudemire to go away, his five-year $99.7 million contract was a major millstone, and he never plays defense. He’s played a grand total of eight games with the Dallas Mavericks. The team has gone 4-4 during that span.

Is he wrong, though?

[Follow Dunks Don’t Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball]

Dallas’ showing on Tuesday was a disappointment even for those that had no dog in the fight. “Statement wins” are a pointless concept, but many tuned into that contest to hoping to see a Maverick team that had just about had enough. One that was ready to buy into the idea that the Western Conference playoff bracket was as stout on its outer edges as it is at the very top. One that was ready to confirm that Dirk Nowitzki wasn’t submitting to the ravages of time, and that Father Time wasn’t working red in tooth and claw.

Instead, the Mavs fell and fell hard. There should be no shame in being blown out by LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers, a championship contender if we ever saw one, but somehow the Mavericks found a way to cobble together a shameful performance.

This team is hurting. It has regressed significantly offensively since dealing for Rondo, and the team’s improvements in defense and rebounding (improvements that can’t be solely pinned on Rondo’s influences, as they sustain even while Rondo sits) haven’t been enough to stem the tide. Since the first week of January, the group has been decidedly average on both ends of the court.

During the team’s nearly nine-week stretch of mediocre ball, quality wins are few and far between. The Mavs beat the Rockets, but that group was working without Dwight Howard. They beat the Grizzlies, nice job, but Memphis returned the favor eight days later with a 19-point blowout win. Dallas topped Portland, but only after the Trail Blazers somehow managed to only score 18 points in 17 combined fourth quarter and overtime minutes. A win over the Miami Heat came with Dwyane Wade watching from the sidelines.

Stoudemire, meanwhile, has been brilliant in his time with his new team. He’s averaging 11.4 points in only 17.5 minutes a contest, shooting 62 percent from the field, contributing expertly in spite of having to dive into a dysfunctional crew midseason.

Jacket be damned, the guy is allowed to talk about how things have gone pear-shaped.

You can yelp about Stoudemire’s various injuries and contracts all you want, but this is still the same guy who has spent summer after summer putting in endless hours attempting to work his way back from injuries that would have sent lesser sorts into the retirement home ages ago. Stoudemire is still the professional that came back way too early from microfracture surgery nine years ago around this time, putting his entire career at risk at age 23. Mock the red wine nonsense all you want, but at least he’s trying.

Take jabs at his contract with the Knicks if you feel the need, but this is still the man who gave up $2 million in order to join what he thought was going to be a championship contender. Amar’e could have stayed with the lowly Knicks, kept the money, and jumped on another team’s championship train (because all manner of contenders would take him on, regardless of his back and knee woes) next fall, but Stoudemire thought the timing imperative and jumped straightaway.

The Mavericks have a few days “off,” and then they have to get their stuff straight. The team doesn’t play again until Friday, when they’ll have to take on the Los Angeles Clippers. A contest against the desperate (and currently tied for the final spot in the Western Conference playoff bracket) Oklahoma City Thunder hits three days later. From there until the end of the regular season, the team will have to take on the Thunder again, the Spurs twice, the white-hot Pacers in Indianapolis, the Rockets (presumably with Dwight Howard healthy), Golden State, a seemingly equal in stature Suns squad twice, and Portland. That’s 11 potential losses, if you’re crying at home.

They have 16 games in 35 days in an attempt to develop the sort of momentum that seemed to be rolling on high last winter. They have 16 games in 35 days to attempt to reignite the same sort of hope behind the ideal that has been in place since the 2011 lockout resolved itself – the ideal that leans on the premise that one can just lend Rick Carlisle a disparate collection of talented players, and that his coaching brilliance will be able to sort everything out.

That premise went out in the first round in 2012, it missed the playoffs in 2013, and though it took the champs to seven games in 2014, the premise is limping badly late in 2014-15. Dallas won’t miss the playoffs this season, and there’s nothing to suggest that they can’t take a team like Memphis to seven games once the first round sparks up again.

The team doesn’t look like a championship contender, though. Amar’e Stoudemire wasn’t wrong in his breakdown of the Mavericks’ woes, but he may have been completely off in which NBA Finals hopeful he decided to tie his fortunes to.

– – – – – – –

Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops