Might as well get the pathetic, historic feats out of the way.
With today’s loss vs. the Indiana Pacers, the Mavericks are now 33-33 and have lost five games in a row. They haven’t had an even .500 record since their win of the year on November of 2015 when they beat DeAndre Jordan and the Clippers at home to go to 4-4.
They haven’t lost five games in a row since December 20-28 of 2012. For good measure, they made it six. In those games the Mavericks were running out a starting five of Darren Collison, OJ Mayo, Shawn Marion, Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman.
This was the beginning of Dallas’ Free Agency whiffs and they had a complete makeshift team surrounding NBA Champion, All-Star and future Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki.
Three and a half years later, it’s a far improved supporting cast (anything is from that) but the Mavericks have indeed fallen five times in a row for the first time since that dark, dark time. These times might be even darker as they actually have some talent. That team had none aside from Dirk.
We’ve got Chandler Parsons making near max money, Wesley Matthews making max money and other starters Deron Williams and Zaza Pachulia are undoubtedly upgrades from terrible Darren Collison and Chris Kaman.
But there’s no way out of their own way right now, the Dallas Mavericks are playing awful.
Fortunately so are the Utah Jazz, and even though the Mavericks are .500 for the first time since the second week of the season, they remain a Playoff team. If things got going today, they would be 8th. Only a few weeks ago the team was feeling optimistic about battling for the 5th seed when Memphis became sellers at the deadline on top of injuries to their core.
But no, the Mavericks, after starting the year surprising everybody by being competitive and good, have fallen so far out of things yet are still in things that our collective heads hurt from such a scenario on top of the pain we already feel watching some pathetic basketball right now.
Except from Dirk. Dirk’s been amazing. And alone.
After today’s loss, Dallas now stands alone in 8th place, 2 1/2 games in front of Utah, 1/2 game behind Houston and Memphis is ways away now at 6 1/2 games with 16 to play. So you can kiss that goodbye.
The Mavs only chance to do anything come Playoff time was to avoid the 7/8 seeds and thus avoid Golden State and San Antonio. Despite their recent struggles, the race for 6th and the “Race to Maybe Play Two Series” is still very much alive. Portland is only one game ahead of Dallas for that spot, so even though things have been oh so terrible (have I made that clear?) the 2015-16 Mavericks could still end up being the 6th seed in the usually ultra competitive Western Conference.
In 2013-14, the Mavericks needed 50 wins to finish eighth. The 49-win Phoenix Suns didn’t make the postseason.
Dallas’ next six games are against winning teams, so things could only get uglier, or they could go 1-5 and we’ll throw a parade. What does winning feel like again?
37-year old Dirk Nowitzki had his 5th 30 point game of the season. Too bad he’s all alone out there, his golden years going to complete waste.
Go Mavs.
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