There were two roads the Dallas Mavericks front office could’ve taken this offseason. One was to re-sign many of the free agents who helped win it all for the Mavs, crippling their salary cap freedom for the future. The other was to reload with new pieces surrounding their core, while remaining flexible cap-wise. Dallas chose the latter and there is no going back.

Once the banner goes up on Christmas Day, it’s officially time for the Mavericks to move on from last year’s magical season and focus on their new goal: defending their championship.

It’s a cast of many new faces in Big D. In addition to the returnees from the championship team, the roster now includes Lamar Odom, Delonte West, Vince Carter, Sean Williams, Brandan Wright, and potentially Drew Neitzel or Jerome Randle. When a team wins a championship, other franchises will come out to pry some of those pieces away, so it’s always tough to keep one group together. Still, the Mavs are dealing with a lot of turnover, leaving Coach Rick Carlisle with quite a bit of work to do in a short period of time.

The Mavericks finished their shortened preseason 0-2 after losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder twice. Granted, preseason results will have almost no direct impact on the regular season or playoffs, but one conclusion that can be taken from the two contests is that Dallas will need some time to work in the new parts they’ve added to the mix. Theories of versatile lineups like one that will include Shawn Marion, Dirk Nowitzki, and Odom all on the floor at the same time will have to be practiced on the fly during the regular season. It’s not ideal, but it’s the reality of the situation.

If Carlisle likes to do anything, he likes to tinker with players and lineups in order to find exactly what he needs when certain situations call for it. A shortened preseason and only two preseason games is exactly what a ‘tinkerer’ would despise. That’s the situation though, so Carlisle will have to blend new faces into the mix when the games count, while also building the roles and confidence of young guards Roddy Beaubois and Dominique Jones.

All of this leads to the increasing possibility that the Mavericks will have a rocky start to the season considering they play the Thunder twice, are at the Spurs, and in Boston all before January 11th. Obviously, this concern isn’t due to lack of talent, as the Mavs are overflowing with it at multiple positions, but due to the need to develop the same kind of chemistry that carried them so far a year ago.

The willingness to put the necessary work in to repeat is there, as we’ve already seen guys like Marion and Jason Terry spouting off about how they feel they aren’t getting the proper respect for winning a championship. Chemistry will come with time and the Mavericks will bring the motivated fight.

Just don’t expect them to be hitting on all cylinders when Christmas rolls around.