The Dallas Mavericks have enjoyed an impressive run of success over the last decade and a half, finishing at or above .500 in each of the last 16 seasons. The last time the Mavs finished below .500 was back in 1999/2000, Dirk Nowitzki‘s second NBA season, when the team had a 40-42 record.
This season, however, the Mavs will face a major uphill battle to get to 41-41. Just a dozen games into the season, Dallas is already eight games below .500, at 2-10. Nowitzki, battling an Achilles injury, has missed time, as have veteran guards Deron Williams, J.J. Barea, and Devin Harris. The club’s top offseason addition, Harrison Barnes, has looked good, but his 21.3 points per game haven’t been enough to get Dallas more than a pair of victories so far.
It’s unclear at this point whether or not the Mavs will enter a full-fledged rebuild, according to Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders, who tweets that the team is definitely keeping an eye on some young players as potential targets. There’s no sense at this time that the Mavericks will blow up their roster, but if they don’t turn things around and some of their veterans want to be traded to contenders, the Mavs could attempt to accommodate them, tweets Kyler.
Meanwhile, in a piece for The Ringer, Kevin O’Connor identifies Dallas as one of a handful of teams that should be tanking this season instead of going all-out to contend. As O’Connor observes, despite having some decent pieces in Barnes, Wesley Matthews, Justin Anderson, Dwight Powell, and Dorian Finney-Smith, the Mavs’ roster “badly needs an infusion of young talent.”
One team executive tells O’Connor that he thinks Dallas would only tank if Nowitzki’s injury issues persist throughout the year. In that scenario, veteran center Andrew Bogut would draw “plenty” of trade interest, according to the exec. The Mavs also hold their own first-round pick for 2017, so a bottom-five finish would give the team a chance at a top prospect.
What do you think? Should the Mavs hope they can get healthy and turn things around, or is it already time to start looking toward the future? If Dallas does decide to focus on next year, which of their vets should be on the trade block, and which ones should be retained as building blocks? Jump into the comments section below to let us know what you think!
They have to look to the future. Adding a top 5 talent to help replace Dirk is so much more important than making the playoffs. Trade Bogut and Matthews (if anybody will take his salary) to open up more time for Powell and Anderson.
This is a no brainer. Tank and hit the reset button. Get what you can in trade offers for Bogut and Deron Williams. See if Seth Curry, Jonathan Gibson and Dorian Finney-Smith are hidden gems while piling up the losses. If not, nothing lost.
I don’t foresee Harrison Barnes being a franchise player, but he looks like a good sign (much better than the alternative Chandler Parsons), and ideally his role should be in between what Dallas and Golden State featured him as – a #2 or #3 option on offense and a lockdown defender.
Dallas should target an athletic big man or a play-making PG in the draft that can play both sides of the ball.
Agree. The team needs to get the next superstar. Dirk is great but old and they aren’t gonna get a championship anytime soon so they should start now. Trade for picks and rebuild. Sucks for dirk because he doesn’t deserve to be on a rebuilding team. Barnes isn’t the future. They got a bunch of ok old point guards they should ship out to point guard needy teams like the cavs. They need a new future. I would also consider letting rick Carlisle go. Even though he’s a top 3 coach in the NBA in my opinion, it’s not fair to him to got through a rebuilding phase.
No way we make the playoffs. Even if we do, we will get hammered by the Warriors, Spurs, or Clippers. I’m all for us testing the market for Bogut, DWill, and Harris to see if we can get some young guards and bigs with upside and some more draft picks.
I agree that Barnes is not likely, at this time, a #1 on a championship contending team, but I do think he can be a 17-22ppg scorer alongside a superstar guard or big. This draft is insanely deep, so if we can get 2 or 3 1st round draft picks we need to go for it! Draft a playmaking PG with size and athleticism and a defensively minded, P&R, athletic big then let those two, Anderson, Powell, Curry, Finney-Smith, etc. grow and learn together.
I don’t think Cuban will ever fire Carlisle. I think it would take multiple years of bottles five finishes with a healthy roster for Carlisle to ask to be let go.
Carlisle isn’t and has never been good with young players. You could probably trade him also. I would stockpile as many picks as we can for the next 2 drafts
Blow it up. Dirk while a future HOFamer, is probably going to retire after this season, especially seeing that this team is in total rebuild mode, and his body is breaking down. DWill is also fighting off injury with more frequency, jettison him as well. Matthews will never be the player he was in Portland again, but they signed him to a big contract. JJ and Harris are injured and not the same players they were either. Anderson, Powell, Finney-Smith, Gibson, Hammonds and Barnes are young and need to develop. May as well start now, playoffs are a dream at this point.
I think the Mavs should blow up and rebuild. Point Guards are (in my opinion) now the biggest need of any team. I would try to get a top 5 talent PG in the draft like the Foxx kid from Kentucky. maybe get another mid 1st round pick and get Monk from Kentucky as well. they have played great together. maybe trade bogut and a few 2nd rounders and maybe powell for a mid first round. Mathews I feel like would be very hard to trade. I don’t mind keeping Williams on the mavs roster if the mavs draft a guy like Fox. Williams used to be an allstar and could teach the kid a few things. They could get Noel in the offseason- even though hes a RFA.
Nothing but love and respect for Harrison Barnes but if he is scoring 21 ppg with who he has now, no way he can be a #2 option to a superstar with the numbers he has now