INDIANAPOLIS – Sam Perkins is a really big fan of the way the Dallas Mavericks are currently constructed.
“They have the talent,” said Perkins, who played for the Mavs from 1984-90. “It just comes to a point where they have their lows in shooting or defense, especially.
“It’s just a matter of them putting it together, because the Western Conference is stacked.”
The Mavs are seventh in the West with a 32-23 record, but they’re only one game away from fifth. Phoenix (33-22) is fifth and New Orleans (33-22) is sixth.
In town for this weekend’s All-Star festivities, Perkins is very fond of the Mavs’ dynamic one-two backcourt punch of Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving. But . . .
“You worry about Luka’s minutes,” Perkins told Mavs.com on Friday afternoon at the National Basketball Retired Players Association All-Star Media Day. “I’m not a coach, but I just know that it’s common sense that he’s playing a lot of minutes. And you have Kyrie and you have to make sure that he’s ready to go.
“And if you have a two-man team and you stop Luka — which I don’t think you can. But if you stop him you have to have another phase of your offense to make it work. Those are things that I think they need to start working on now so you can get some points from somewhere else.”
The Mavs’ recent acquisitions of P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford via trades from the Charlotte Hornets and Washington Wizards, respectively, 
could be the keys to them winning a championship, according to Perkins.
“P.J. is going to help them,” Perkins said. “He’s going to have a role, but nothing’s changed for him. He’s playing alongside two great stars and all he has to do is come in and pick up all the garbage and do all the dirty work and help some of the younger players to rely on him, because he’s a vet and he knows what the game is all about.
“He’s got a new life because he’s been in Charlotte. Charlotte has been down for a minute, but now he’s playing with a legit contender. He’s in the West, so it should go well for him. This team is stacked. If they get one more player to score, I believe they can go a little farther.”
Perkins sees Dončić leading the NBA in scoring (34.2), third in assists (9.5), eighth in steals (1.4), and 20th in rebounds (8.8) and won
ders out loud why he’s not consistently being mentioned as a strong candidate to win this season’s Most Valuable Player award.
“That’s strange, too, because he does everything an MVP would do,” Perkins said. “It was controversial when (Philadelphia’s Joel) Embiid won it last year. They still thought (Denver’s Nikola) Jokic was the guy to do it.
“But when you lobby for that award, I say just shut up and play and let your numbers speak. If you come in second, you come in second. If you come in first, OK, but don’t lobby for that. Don’t lobby to get people talking about it, because they’re going to talk about it anyway. But when you put your input in it, it hurts the competitiveness of trying to get that accolade, because of the fact that you put your own opinion in it.”
Perkins knows a thing or two about what an MVP looks like. He won an NCAA championship at North Carolina with Michael Jordan in 1982. And ironically, when Chicago selected Jordan No. 3 overall in the 1984 NBA Draft, Perkins was the next player chosen by the Mavs at No. 4.
Perkins also was part of the up-and-coming young Mavs’ squad that advanced to the 1988 Western Conference Finals – a first for the Mavs — where they lost Game 7 to the Los Angeles Lakers, 117-102.
“I think about that every now and then,” Perkins said. “That game turned dramatically. I saw the clock clearly, six minutes to go (in Game 7) and things turned for the worst for us. LA got on a roll, and I guess we weren’t meant to be in the (NBA) Finals.
“We had a team that we were overachievers, because of the fact that we had so much talent. One thing we didn’t do was be a cohesive team. We were playing on sheer ability. Kudos to the point where the team had progressed each year. We achieved and accomplished a lot.”
A 6-9, 235-pound power forward and center, Perkins was named to the NBA all-rookie first team in 1985. In all, he played 16 seasons in the NBA, including for the Lakers (1990-93), Seattle (1993-98) and Indiana (1999-2001).
Perkins averaged 11.9 points and six rebounds in 1,286 career games, and admitted he would have had to make some major adjustments if he were playing in the NBA today.
“The game is so much faster today,” Perkins said. “When I played we were methodical, but strategic in our play. We had plays, we had options and things of that nature. Today, it’s more on sheer athleticism, pick-and-rolls, get to the hoop, alley-oops, throw it up, run. You have shooters, and analytics says shoot the three more. We didn’t do that.
“We shot the three for insurance, for the purpose of the three being something special. They implement it so much to the point where everybody shoots it. I like it, but I couldn’t play with them, except if I was going from the free throw line to the free throw line. That’s about it. No rebounds, no assists.”
A former treasurer of the National Basketball Retired Players Association, Perkins likes the direction the NBRPA has taken in recent years.
“Membership is up dramatically,” he said. “We’ve got more players that haven’t been around are now coming, because of the fact that the board has done a tremendous job of trying to relate to us members.
“The health benefits helped a great deal –getting health benefits for the retired players. The board for the past six years, seven years has been great. It galvanized a lot of people once we had a goal and a set common play in action so that we could kind of achieve whatever we want.”
X: @DwainPrice
Share and comment