As the Mavericks have ridden the treadmill of mediocrity the last few seasons, unable to escape the first round of the playoffs but never quite falling off into “bad team” territory, there’s been a lot of talk of tanking. With the Sixers mired in “The Process” and the Lakers floundering in Kobe’s last years, some questioned whether it wouldn’t be wise for the Mavericks to embrace the lottery in an effort to rebuild.
Until now, that’s been purely hypothetical. But thanks to injury, offseason acquisitions gone wrong, and drop-off in the performance of some of their veterans, the Mavericks are unintentionally but undeniably bad.