In the grand scheme of sports disasters, collapses, mistakes, oversights and peculiarities, the past month or so of the Dallas Mavericks’ season stands out. It didn’t get better Wednesday.
A month after trading Luka Dončić, three weeks after losing Anthony Davis to injury and a day after losing Kyrie Irving for the season, the Mavericks lost 137-107 to the Milwaukee Bucks. It was their fourth loss in their past five games.
Before the game, however, Mavericks coach Jason Kidd responded to speculation that the team’s own decision-making contributed to Irving going down. Over the previous six weeks, Irving led the NBA in minutes per game with 38.7, most of which were played after he became the team’s offensive centerpiece following the Dončić trade.
That included five straight games with at least 40 minutes immediately after the trade. Via the AP, Kidd called the injury a “freak accident” and complained about “conspiracy theories,” insisting Irving wanted the workload:
“He invited that,” Kidd said. “He wanted that. But are we reporting that? Are we? No, we’re not reporting that. We’re reporting that we’re running someone into the ground. That’s not true. That’s his job, is to play. And he loves to play.
“And it’s all right to play 40 minutes at the age of 32, in a month’s span. This isn’t the whole season, right? I think sometimes we’re taking things a little bit too far, or we’re not really telling the truth because we want the likes or the hearts, or we want somebody to put us up on this platform of not telling the whole truth. Because it was a freak accident. It happened early in the game. We should be promoting our athletes, our players to play more minutes and play more games, but are we? Probably not.”
Irving is 32 years old and has faced numerous injuries in his career. It is Kidd’s job to say no if a player wants a workload that may not be sustainable.
Shorthanded Mavericks blown out by Bucks
There was no drama to the loss. Dallas was down double-digits by the end of the first quarter, down by 19 at halftime and down by as many as 35 in the second half. Klay Thompson, the lineup’s last remaining former All-Star, led the Mavs with 28 points, but that wasn’t enough to make up for dueling 30-point games from Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard.
Not only were the Mavs missing Davis and Irving, nearly their entire big-man rotation was out hurt, among other players. In his fifth game since returning from a hip strain, Dwight Powell got his second start of the season at center and scored six points.
Lots of Mavs out tonight vs. the Bucks 🤕
Kyrie Irving (ACL)
Anthony Davis (adductor)
P.J. Washington (ankle)
Daniel Gafford (knee)
Dereck Lively II (ankle)
Kai Jones (quad)
Caleb Martin (hip)
Jaden Hardy (ankle)
Danté Exum (foot) pic.twitter.com/eVtdrYL50G— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) March 6, 2025
The Bucks shot 58.6% from the field, 45.7% from 3-point range and outrebounded the Mavs, 60-38.
In theory, the Mavericks will get better once Davis comes back. Part of the reason they traded for the former Los Angeles Lakers champion, besides apparently losing faith in Dončić, was to shore up their defense while adding a versatile big man on offense. But why come back if the season is lost?
That plan was built on Irving still being around, though, and he likely won’t be ready for the start of next season. So the Mavericks are left with a massively shorthanded roster and a 32-31 record, good enough for 10th place in the West. But there is little reason to expect them to do anything with a play-in spot.
With 19 games left in the season, the Mavericks hold a 2.5-game lead over the Phoenix Suns and are fully incentivized to lose for the rest of the season, with the hope that their win-now core will actually win next season. It’s an unenviable position, created by a combination of bad decisions, bad luck and basic logic.
