NBA trade deadline time

The buzzer for deals is essentially a month away. This week's around-the-league notes feature the freshest chatter

Before we get to this week's around-the-league notes …

Let's try this again.

Very slowly if necessary.

I published a story Monday about a two-game preseason trip overseas in the works for the Dallas Mavericks with proposed stops in Abu Dhabi and Spain, as well as USA Basketball's plans to make its own visit to Abu Dhabi before the 2023 FIBA World Cup begins in late August.

Something, however, got lost in aggregation. The Spanish national sports daily newspaper Marca attributed a report to me saying that the Mavericks would play Real Madrid in Abu Dhabi ... attributing it specifically to Marc Stein of The New York Times even though I haven't had a Times byline since July 1, 2021. Bleacher Report also misaggregated what I reported, asserting that the Mavericks would play two games in Abu Dhabi, and I've been told other outlets went astray.

I reread what I wrote originally to try to gauge my level of culpability. In Paragraph 2, I discussed — very clearly to me at least — that the Mavericks are expected to play a single game in Abu Dhabi. There were no plurals to be found anywhere in the sentence.

Then in Paragraph 3, I wrote about how the Abu Dhabi game is likely to be part of a two-game trip ABROAD that would include a long-awaited exhibition against Real Madrid. As noted in that same paragraph, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been trying to arrange a game IN MADRID for some time because his franchise player Luka Dončić badly wants to play another game there after playing for Real throughout his teenage years before matriculating to the NBA.

I didn't think these were hard-to-follow paragraphs. Because they apparently were for some, I'm going to break this down one more time. Monday's story addressed three different international basketball events that are in the works and on course to take place later in 2023:

1. The Mavericks playing a preseason game at Real Madrid. Yes: In Spain.

2. The Mavericks playing a preseason game in Abu Dhabi on the same trip against TBD opposition.

3. USA Basketball making a stop in Abu Dhabi in August as part of its preparations for the 2023 World Cup.

Now let’s get to the good stuff.