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The Dallas Mavericks got into action on Friday night and still had an outside chance to qualify for the play-in tournament. They were one loss back from the No. 10 Thunder, who did hold the tiebreaker, making that an effective two-game deficit with two to play. The Mavs needed to win their last two and let OKC lose its last game against the Grizzlies.
Unlikely. But possible.
Instead, the Mavericks, a team that traded for Kyrie Irving with at least the internal intent to compete for a championship, unashamedly punted on every chance they had in the postseason by having Irving, Tim Hardaway Jr., Josh Green, Maxi Kleber and Christian Wood sit against the Bulls for “precautionary” reasons.
As a slap in the face to all the fans who paid to see this game, and Mavericks fans hoping to see their team in the playoffs, Dallas only played Luka Doncic in the first quarter because it was “I Feel Slovenia” night. used to be. . According to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, Doncic “didn’t want to disappoint his compatriots” who came to see him play.
This is such an embarrassing look, not just for the Mavericks, but for the NBA as a whole, as this problem of the best, most marketable players who for some reason become less and less reliable to actually play has damaged the reputation of the competition continues to harm and product.
If you don’t know why the Mavericks pulled the plug on the season, it’s because on Friday they tied with, coincidentally, the Bulls, their opponent on Friday, for 10th best lottery odds. The 2023 first round that Dallas owes to the Knicks as the capstone of the Kristaps Porzingis trade is top-10 protected.
This means that if the Mavericks’ 2023 pick lands at number 11 or lower, they will lose it to New York. Under the current lottery structure, it’s a wise move. Therefore, the structure stinks.
Anything that encourages an NBA team – given the money these guys make and the money fans have to pay in turn in the form of tickets or cable packages – to put a bad product on the floor with the intent of losing games is an undeniably horrible, borderline offensive thing.
The last month of any NBA season always turns into a tank party to some degree. And you can understand why, since it makes more sense to prioritize lottery positioning than maybe sneak into the play-in tournament only to be bounced back a few days later.
It’s time to do something different. I don’t know if the answer is to level off the lottery odds for each team 1-30. There are always unintended consequences of any setup. The whole idea of the lottery was to give a bunch of bad teams a chance to get better, but the unintended consequence of that is that teams get a good reason to be bad.
It’s not my job to figure out the problem.
I just know it’s a problem.
And listen, this problem didn’t just start when the Mavericks pulled the plug this season. This is just one of the most egregious cases, if not the most egregious case of tanking we’ve ever seen.
Again, this is a team that has made a blockbuster effort to pair a second superstar with one of the best players in the world. I can’t think of any other situation where a team traded in for a superstar in the middle of the season and then openly kicked the same season a few months later.
It’s just an embarrassing look for everyone involved. The NBA regular season has largely become a joke already, but this is about as laughable as I’ve ever seen it.
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