The Dallas Mavericks may not be a good basketball team right now, but there is a different tone and energy on the floor and around the team now that team governor Patrick Dumont turned the page and closed
the chapter on the Nico Harrison era. The team hasn’t suddenly bounced back, it is still the same roster construction and the same injuries after all, but there can at least be planning and momentum for what life can look like now in Mavsland.
This week’s NBA Power Rankings Watch shows some slight improvement from the team, thanks in part to moving Cooper Flagg back to his natural position. The team to their credit also plays hard night in and night out, even if it isn’t producing wins.
ESPN
Rank: 23
Last week: 25
Role player: Klay Thompson
Thompson was recruited to Dallas with the promise of a starting job, but he has taken his shift to a bench role in stride after a slow start. He has also performed better in a reserve role, averaging 10.7 points on 34.4% 3-point shooting in seven games off the bench, compared with 8.1 points on just 26.2% from long range in seven games as a starter. “My head is [focused on] just being the best version of myself. Starting or not starting, I know I’m going to play, and I know I’m still capable of great things,” Thompson said. — MacMahon
NBA
Rank: 22
Last week: 23
The Mavs listened to their fans and fired Nico Harrison a little more than nine months after he traded Luka Dončić to the Lakers. The vibes are better and so was the basketball over the weekend, with the Mavs splitting a pair of overtime games against the Clippers and Blazers.
Three takeaways
- Cooper Flagg had his best game of the season in the Mavs’ two-point loss to the Bucks on Monday, with his 26 points featuring an impressive spin move and tough finish over Giannis Antetokounmpo that tied the game with less than 30 seconds left. Flagg has shot 57.4% in the paint, but has an effective field goal percentage of just 36.9% on shots from outside the paint. That’s the fifth-biggest differential among 97 players with at least 50 field goal attempts both in and outside the paint. Brandon Williams (58.2% vs. 25.0%) has the second biggest differential among 145 players with at least 35 attempts both inside and out, and the Mavs have the second biggest differential as a team.
- The Mavs lead the league with 11 games that were within five points in the last five minutes. They made as many clutch 3-pointers in their overtime win over Portland on Sunday (2-for-3) as they had made over their 10 previous clutch games combined (2-for-23), but they took all seven of their shots in the paint as they scored 20 points on 12 possessions in the extra period.
- The Mavs got Dereck Lively II back from a nine-game absence over the weekend, but Anthony Davis (who’s missed the last nine) will be out for at least another four games. That means through more than 20% of the season, they will have had Davis on the floor with one of their two centers for a total of just 29 minutes.
Coming up: The Mavs’ schedule remains home-heavy for another week, but their win over the Blazers on Sunday was the start of their only stretch of five games in seven days. They’ll be at a rest disadvantage in Minnesota on Monday night.
The Athletic
Rank: 25 (Tier 4: Not the tier to fear)
Last week: 27
Offensive rating: 105.8 (29th place) Defensive rating: 110.9 (4th place)
Most Notable Injury: PG Kyrie Irving (left ACL)
Well, the Mavericks fired Nico Harrison this week, and you could say injury has a lot to do with it. Irving tore his ACL in March and he is still months away from entertaining a return. Anthony Davis has missed nine of 14 games, and he’ll probably miss the rest of the month. Centers Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II have combined to miss 14 games this season. But these are all injury-prone players, and veterans Klay Thompson and D’Angelo Russell have already been relegated to the second unit. If you build an old, injury-prone team, while trading away a top-five player in the prime of his career, this is an expected result. At least Cooper Flagg isn’t being asked to run Jason Kidd’s offense anymore and is coming off his best week of games as a result.
Bleacher Report
Rank: 25
Last week: 25
The Dallas Mavericks are still hovering around the bottom of the Western Conference standings after ending their week with a loss sealed by a controversial offensive foul call.
And things are bad enough now that we’re starting to hear whispers of a possible Anthony Davis trade before February’s deadline.
Of course, that should have been on the table before this campaign even started. As soon as the basketball gods blessed Dallas with the No. 1 pick in June, the most logical path forward was a rebuild around Cooper Flagg (who missed his first game on Wednesday). However, that was never going to happen with Nico Harrison, the architect of the disastrous Luka Dončić trade, at the helm.
Now that the executive who was most invested in this experiment is gone, Dallas can scrap it and do what’s best for the long-term health of the franchise. That includes making just about every veteran available, trying to recoup as many picks and as much young talent as possible.
It also means trying to tailor a roster that fits Flagg’s game, rather than shoehorning him into all-forward lineups that have contributed to the Mavs having the worst offense in the NBA.
