As the Dallas Mavericks walked off the court Wednesday night following yet another loss — this time a 113-111 defeat to the New York Knicks — players bowed their head and strolled towards the locker room in silence.
Brandon Williams had his hands on his head, Dereck Lively II shook his head slowly after a short conversation with a member of the coaching staff, and the Mavericks piled into the locker room to dissect another defeat, their 12th in 16 games this season.
Dallas is currently ranked 13th in the Western Conference and would have a better chance at securing the No. 1 overall pick if the draft lottery were held today (5.4%) than they do of making the 2026 NBA Playoffs (4.6%), according to ESPN’s pregame coverage of Wednesday’s game.
There are moments of hope with this team. Cooper Flagg missed his first game of the season Wednesday but has shown that he will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come. Williams — a guy who was on a two-way contract last season — has shined in his first season on a guaranteed deal, averaging 10.8 points and 3.3 assists in nearly 21 minutes a game. Moussa Cisse, one of Dallas’ current two-way players, looks like a bright prospect as he gets more minutes through the first 16 games of a nightmare 2025-2026 campaign.
There are reasons to be hopeful about the future of the Mavericks, but we have to be honest about where this team is right now. Dallas does not control their draft picks from 2027-2030 and will likely not have a pick in 2027 or 2029 unless they manage to secure a top-2 pick in the 2027 draft. The draft capital is bleak, and it doesn’t look like Dallas will be a hotspot for free agents anytime soon after the Dončić saga.
The situation is dire, perhaps the most dire in franchise history as ESPN’s Bobby Marks said on DLLS Mavs’ podcast Tuesday, but it doesn’t have to be. There’s been a lot of debate since the Mavericks fired Nico Harrison November 11 about whether the Mavericks need to trade their older players or wait to see if they could contribute to this team when healthy.
I think for everyone’s sake, it’s time to move on. Kyrie Irving, one of the city’s most adored stars, didn’t sign up to be on a Mavericks team that’s 4-12 and struggling to be competitive in games. Klay Thompson didn’t sign a free agency deal to play for a team that’s nowhere near the playoffs. Even Anthony Davis was brought here under the presumption that Dallas was operating under a “3-4 year championship window.”
I argued at the time that window was never open, and now I think we can all say for certain it’s closed. It’s time to let Davis, Irving, Thompson — and really whoever else wants out — seek out a new team.
This is not an indictment on the players. I’ve loved Kyrie’s time in Dallas and even AD has looked fun in the games that he’s managed to suit up for, but this “two timelines” approach rarely works anywhere and it definitely won’t work for a team with as many injury concerns as Dallas does.
Let the veterans go to a team where they can contribute and contend for a title, thank them for their time in Dallas, get what you can in return, and launch a rebuild with a clear message: we are building around Cooper Flagg. Whatever pieces we may get in future drafts and free agency will help that mission, not fulfill a championship window so asinine you fired the guy that said it.
There’s been a lot of hostility on social media over the last week and a half towards some of the Mavericks players and I want to make perfectly clear my calls for them to be traded should not be seen as an endorsement of that hostility. I have nothing but respect for AD, Kyrie, Klay, and the other veterans on this team. If they want to stay and help build Flagg into a franchise star, I’m all for it, but they need to be sold on that mission and if they don’t want to be a part of that, I fully understand and I wish them well on their next team.
No one asked to be here. Harrison’s firing heals a small part of the anger in our hearts, but the roster he left behind remains broken and without a clear vision for the future. It’s time to hit the hard reset button and let the vets on this team decide: do I want to be a role model or do I want to contend for a championship?
Whatever their answer is, I wish them well. AD is one of the best talents this league has ever seen. Kyrie left us all in awe with his performances in the 2024 NBA Playoffs, and Klay Thompson is a top-3 shooter the game has ever seen — but the three of them will make over $106,000,000 this season.
If we were contending, that would be great, but we’re not, and we can’t spend half of our salary on players that don’t align with the vision for this team. These guys deserve to finish their careers in the playoffs, fighting for a championship and solidifying their all-time legacies.
Unfortunately, they will not be able to do that in Dallas.
So whoever is named the next GM in Dallas needs to work with these guys. We don’t need another Luka situation where Kyrie is traded in the middle of the night, but we need to be honest.
This era of Dallas Mavericks basketball is over. It’s time to peacefully and amicably move on and prepare for the next chapter.