In The Biggest Game Of Their Season, The Dallas Mavericks Have Decided To Give Their Fans A Gigantic Middle Finger

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Heading into tonight, the Dallas Mavericks were hanging onto their playoff lives by the smallest of threads. They needed to be perfect to end their season (2-0), while hoping the Thunder go at least 1-1. You could say these are now "must win" games for a team that went all in at the trade deadline for Kyrie Irving in hopes that would be enough star power to help the Mavs make a deep playoff run.

So, on such a massive night, what do the Mavs decide to do?

Punt on the season

If you're curious why the hell this would happen to a team that had title aspirations, it's pretty simple. If the Mavs win this game, the Knicks get their first round pick since it will fall out of the top 10. Losing this game, pretty much sends the Mavs to Cancun. 

So let's just recap here quickly. Mark Cuban cried about that Warriors loss and ultimately lost his protest attempt. Then he went on a media tour talking about how the reason they weren't able to keep Jalen Brunson was because his family got involved. Now, as a result of that Kristaps Porzingis trade back in 2019, they find themselves in a bit of a pickle

Shams did say this was a possibility on Monday, which tells me someone in the Mavs told him what the plan was going to be. 

My question is, if they were always going to tank at the end of the year, why did everyone on the Mavs roster JUST play on Wednesday night in their win over the Kings? That sure made it seem like they were going to gun for that Play In spot since ya know, they basically mortgaged their future at the trade deadline to try and win a title.

Now with a position to still make the play in/playoffs, the team is deciding to punt on the season? What a "fuck you" to Mavs fans. Now maybe they are just trying to avoid a situation where they lose the top 10 pick AND miss the playoffs, but at this point how do you not try and go all in? If you were going to tank for Wemby or higher, why even make the Kyrie trade? Better yet, once it was clear that combo wasn't leading to wins, why did you wait an additional month before pulling the plug?

Where is Adam Silver in all this? Isn't this the exact thing the league is trying to stop from happening? I thought they wanted every team in the league to try and win. Now, a big market team with two superstar level players is quitting on the season when it's technically still alive? That's gross. 

Something tells me this is a prime opportunity for the Basketball Gods to do their thing. Would anyone be surprised if the shorthanded Mavs somehow still won over the shorthanded Bulls tonight? As we know, the Basketball Gods do not take kindly to teams that disrespect the game and try and manipulate the standings, and that's exactly what this is. 

In what has been a season from hell for Mavs fans, maybe this type of ending is fitting. All I know is it's extremely embarrassing and pretty spineless. Is your goal to win a title or not? If it isn't, then why did you trade for Kyrie Irving? Punting on a season when you have 2 games left and are still alive with 2 very winnable games is shameful. 

I can't wait for the Mavs to toss a max extension at Kyrie over the summer and try this all again next year! Surely things will go smoothly, what could possibly go wrong?