Don\u2019t get me wrong. I\u2019m not complaining that it\u2019s a bad look for the league. Of course it is. But let someone else come up with a remedy for tanking.<\/p>\n
And wait until next year, when the Dallas Mavericks won\u2019t have a dog in the hunt.<\/p>\n
They need to channel their inner dog this year.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s dog, not dawg.<\/p>\n
The problem isn\u2019t that so many bad teams aren\u2019t even trying to remain competitive; it\u2019s that too many sit between the Mavs and a shot at Cooper Flagg\u2019s fraternal twin.<\/p>\n
And I don\u2019t mean Ace, either.<\/p>\n
The Mavs can\u2019t count on the same luck they enjoyed last year when they won the lottery with only a 1.8% shot, inspiring Nico Harrison to crow, \u201cFortune favors the bold.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frankly, I\u2019d have fired him just for having the nerve to say that.<\/p>\n
As you may know by now, this is the last draft in which the Mavs have control of their first-round pick until 2031. While that\u2019s the bad news, the good news is that this is a great year to be awful.<\/p>\n
NBA executives characterize this draft, a deep one topped by Kansas\u2019 Darryn Peterson and BYU\u2019s AJ Dybantsa, as \u201cgenerational,\u201d meaning even the Mavs couldn\u2019t screw this up if they get close enough.<\/p>\n
They sit seventh in the lottery line after a 124-104 loss to the Luka-less Lakers, their ninth in a row. That\u2019s pretty bad, but they could do worse, and have. The last time they ran up a losing streak this long was 1997-98, when it reached 15.<\/p>\n
The prize at the end: Dirk Nowitzki.<\/p>\n
Chances are they won\u2019t be as fortunate this time, but that doesn\u2019t mean they shouldn\u2019t try. Once they return from the All-Star break, they\u2019ll have 28 games to see how much worse they can get, because the competition is heating up. Utah was already in full tank mode when Jaren Jackson Jr., whom the Jazz acquired at the deadline from Memphis, another team in tank mode, went down for the season. Even before Jackson got hurt, Utah coach Will Hardy made no secret of the organization\u2019s intentions. In the fourth quarter of a couple of recent games, he benched Jackson as well as Lauri Markkanen, including one loss in which they blew a 17-point lead.<\/p>\n
Asked this week how close he was to reinserting either of his stars, Hardy said, \u201cI wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, I don\u2019t blame the Jazz in the least for their audacious pursuit of putrid. If they don\u2019t finish in the bottom eight, they have to send their first-round pick to Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n
Just what the best team in basketball needs: another lottery pick.<\/p>\n
Speaking of which, if you\u2019d like an example of what back-to-back lottery bonanzas can do, check the Thunder, who won 22 games in the 2020-21 season and 24 the next.<\/p>\n
Only three years later, they were world champions.<\/p>\n
The Mavs wouldn\u2019t necessarily find themselves on the same trajectory even if they land the top pick, but they\u2019re closer than you might think. Flagg has already demonstrated that he\u2019s a legitimate cornerstone. Most of the supporting cast from the Finals run two years ago remains intact. You might say it\u2019s even better. I\u2019ll take Naji Marshall and Max Christie over Derrick Jones Jr. and Tim Hardaway Jr. If Dereck Lively II can stay healthy, many of the interior defensive issues will disappear.<\/p>\n
Besides hitting on the lottery ticket, the new general manager must decide what to do with Kyrie Irving: Keep him or double down on the Anthony Davis trade by creating more cap space. All possibilities should be entertained, but if it were me, I\u2019d keep him. If they do this right, Kyrie could be the point guard on a contender in a couple of years. It would also be fun to see him and Flagg on the floor at the same time.<\/p>\n
Just not at any point this season.<\/p>\n
Keeping Kyrie on ice is the surest way to ensure the Mavs remain on track. It wouldn\u2019t hurt to give Flagg, who missed the All-Star festivities with a sprained left foot, a day off here or there, either. But for the most part, he should play. He\u2019s growing in confidence and stature by the game, and after everything Mavs fans have been through in the past year, they deserve a glimpse of greatness.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean Jason Kidd can\u2019t make up for it in other ways. He gets points here for starting lineups without point guards lately. He could also make it a mission to get Klay Thompson into third place on the all-time 3-point list.<\/p>\n
Fire away, Klay.<\/p>\n
I suppose you could say Kidd\u2019s bosses did a little inside tanking by trading AD to the Wizards. First, you\u2019d have to assume Street Clothes no longer travels by ambulance. He won\u2019t hurt the Wizards\u2019 lottery odds, let\u2019s just say that.<\/p>\n
The Mavs should set their sights on the bottom five and roll with the odds. Besides the Jazz, Grizzlies and Wizards, their primary competition for the top pick includes the Hawks, by way of the Pelicans, Pacers and Nets. There\u2019s no catching the Kings, who are so bad they don\u2019t even have to try to be. They lost to the Jazz the other night by 28. Hardy could have rolled with four players and it probably wouldn\u2019t have mattered, though Adam Silver might have had to revoke their hall pass.<\/p>\n
The commissioner fined the Jazz $500,000 and the Wizards $100,000 for \u201cconduct detrimental to the league,\u201d as if that\u2019s going to scare anyone, especially with a potentially historic draft looming. Until the league comes up with a legitimate deterrent to tanking, nothing will keep teams from breaking bad. If the concept makes you a little squeamish, I\u2019d suggest you watch baseball this spring. It might be your last chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t get me wrong. I\u2019m not complaining that it\u2019s a bad look for the league. Of course it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,166,736,6,249,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-609364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-dallasmavericks","12":"tag-mavericks","13":"tag-men","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nba-draft-lottery","16":"tag-utah-jazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}