The Dallas Mavericks have a solid foundation to build around going forward. It starts with their duo of young All-Stars, one of which is an MVP candidate. The future is bright in Dallas, but with that comes expectations.

On the Locked On Mavericks Podcast, hosts Nick Angstadt and Isaac Harris discuss how Mavs' fans expectations changed throughout the season and how that relates to The Office.

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Nick Angstadt: To your point on being encouraged, there's an episode of The Office where Dwight and Jim are head of the Party Planning Committee. Now it's Christmas time. You know, the office is kind of decorated here and there, it's Christmas time. Everybody has coats on, you can tell. And they bring up something under a sheet into the into the room, and they announce, all right, we're gonna unveil the tree, and they go back and forth.

Finally, Dwight pulls the sheet off and there's nothing on it, it's just the tree. And everyone goes, ‘You didn't even decorate it, or are there even lights on it?' And they're like, ‘No, guys, we're gonna decorate it together. This is the whole point.' And then Pam looks over at Jim and she goes, ‘Is it fake?' Like, is it a fake tree, and they're all questioning this tree?

I feel like the Mavericks are the tree. And you and I are the guys pulling the sheet off the Mavericks like ‘Look, this Mavericks team, this is exactly what we expected this season to be, you know, expected this to be Luka and KP working well together.’ We expected this to be a season of them figuring it out together, getting to the spot where we're potentially a playoff team going forward.

And then everyone else is like, ‘Yeah, but we already knew that it was going to be a tree. We already knew that the Mavs are going to be a playoff team. We already knew this. So we wanted more when it's already put together.’

This team is not already put together, this Mavericks team is an undecorated tree. Now, it's a really good ass tree. It's not like… It’s not a Charlie Brown tree, right? Like this is a tree like 50-foot tall pine tree, right? This is a really good looking tree. This is like a Times Square tree. Yeah, this is a tree. This tree has so much potential. And the Mavericks have destroyed all of our expectations, but expectations have changed so much throughout the year. That's kind of easy to lose sight on what this was actually supposed to be. So, when they unveil the tree, it's like, ‘Oh, you're disappointed because you expected something else even though we told you this is exactly what it's gonna be.'