There hasn’t been much different of late in the NBA Power Rankings Watch. Not for the Mavericks, at least. They collected a handful of wins, and followed it with a free fall of losses. The kind of thing a lottery team tends to do. But what to make of all of it, ahead of next week’s NBA trade deadline that so far has been remarkably quiet. Not just for Dallas, but across the league.

This week’s reporting on Milwaukee Bucks’ on-again-off-again superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo and a “new” trade request likely halted actions from leadership across the league while his market is calibrated. And while the Mavericks shouldn’t figure at all in those actual dealings, a direction for the organization and their roster strategy remains unclear.

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Rank: 23Last week: 24

Naji Marshall has been phenomenal since being plugged into the starting lineup as the de facto point guard in early January. Marshall has averaged 20.0 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.5 assists while shooting 57.6% from the floor to help the Mavs go 6-4 during that stretch. The 6-foot-6 wing has quietly emerged as one of the NBA’s most efficient drivers this season, in large part due to Marshall’s lethal floater. According to NBA tracking data, Marshall is shooting 60.5% from the floor on drives, trailing only Luka Doncic among the league’s top 40 scorers on such plays. — MacMahon

Rank: 22Last week: 24

Three takeaways

The Mavs rank seventh defensively and the last five games (107.8 points allowed per 100 possessions) have been their best stretch on that end of the floor since early November. Two of those games came against teams that rank in the top 10 offensively and their win last Monday was the Knicks’ worst offensive game of the season (97 points on 105 possessions).

P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford both returned from short absences last week, but Dwight Powell has remained in the starting lineup. He’s played just 478 total minutes thus far, but the Mavs have been at their best (plus-11.6 per 100 possessions) with Powell on the floor.

Coming up: The Mavs’ defense will continue to be tested, with seven of their final eight games before the All-Star break coming against teams that rank in the top 10 offensively. They’ve held the Rockets (fourth) to just 108.0 points per 100 possessions (Houston’s second-worst mark vs. any opponent) in three meetings thus far, set to complete the season series on Saturday.

Rank: 23Last week: 23

The Dallas Mavericks followed up an undefeated week by going 0-4 since the last edition of the power rankings.

If they have a few more runs like this most recent one, great. Adding one of this draft class’ potential stars to Cooper Flagg could set Dallas up for contention for years.

And if the Mavs can combine more losing with more games like Thursday’s from Cooper Flagg, even better.

Dallas came up short against the Charlotte Hornets on Thursday, but Flagg showed his upside as a volume scorer with a career-high 49 points.

Rank: 24 (Tier 4: Not the Tier to Fear)Last week: 24

No team has lost more clutch-time games than the Mavericks this season. The latest was a fourth-quarter catastrophe against the visiting Los Angeles Lukas, a game where the Mavericks overcame a 14-point deficit just to blow a 15-point lead with seven minutes to play. Dallas missed 10 straight shots and also failed to grab a rebound until the final seconds while getting outscored 29-8 to end the game Saturday. The Mavericks have played adequately since a 5-15 start, but the offense is bad, and a team that stocked up on size uses painfully little of it on the glass.