The Dallas Mavericks weren’t supposed to be here.
I am not joking. They really were not supposed to be here, in the NBA Finals, on the brink of their second championship in franchise history.
On February 3, the Mavericks were just 26-23. They were a glorified play-in team praying for a favorable matchup in the first round of the playoffs. No one in their right mind saw this team playing June basketball. Then Luka Doncic started playing like an MVP-caliber superstar, the Mavericks made a whole host of ambitious moves at the annual NBA trade deadline, and they went 36-14 through the rest of the regular season and the entire Western Conference playoffs combined.
What a remarkable turnaround.
READ MORE: 3 smart decisions that got the Boston Celtics to the NBA Finals.
As Doncic and Co. prepare to battle the Celtics in what should be an epic Finals series, let’s recount how these Mavericks paved a path to the NBA’s championship round.
1. Finding Luka Doncic a real running mate
After Dallas gave up on Kristaps Porzingis, it was clear that Doncic still needed a real No. 2 partner. The Mavericks needed someone who could take some of the tremendous offensive burden off Doncic’s hands and make them a more balanced team overall. They decided it would be Kyrie Irving, the electric guard with a skeptical recent past when they traded for him at last year’s deadline.
Initially, the fit with Doncic and Irving didn’t make much sense. Both players looked too ball-dominant. It was almost as if they didn’t know how to play together and successfully mesh their games into a winning brand of basketball. Labeling the Irving deal as a lost cause of broken chemistry and a case of the Mavericks fitting a square peg into a round hole with their backcourt was easy.
In extreme hindsight, it’s quite amusing that anyone ever questioned this fit. In Irving’s first full season with the Mavericks, he and Doncic flourished, especially down the stretch and into the playoffs. Together, both dynamite talents have inspired discussion about them being the best offensive backcourt in NBA history.
Together, this duo has the Celtics already wracking their brains on the defensive end:
"What can you do to nullify/thwart/stop Kyrie?"
Jrue Holiday: Pray
— NBA (@NBA) June 5, 2024
They are, by far, the biggest reason Dallas qualified for the 2024 Finals. Sometimes, blockbuster trades work out for the better. Who knew?
2. A tank job for the ages
This time last year, the Mavericks did not turn their season around on a dime. In fact, as the 2023 regular season came to a close, Dallas was four games under .500 with a slight prayer of qualifying for the play-in tournament. But rather than try and sprint through the finish line only to potentially get demolished by a top-seeded juggernaut, the Mavericks waved the white flag.
Dallas sat multiple starters and rotational players in each of its last two regular-season games to ensure it wouldn’t qualify for the play-in. Why? The Mavericks wanted a draft lottery pick, someone who could actually make an immediate impact on the team in the ensuing season when they tried to compete again.
This move turned out to be a stroke of genius as said lottery pick turned into rookie center Dereck Lively II. You know, the Mavericks’ fourth or even third-best player this season? You know, the guy who helped unlock Doncic as a “winning” player?
Yeah, that dude.
WHAT A SEQUENCE FOR DERECK LIVELY II 💪
A dunk into a swat… INTO AN OOP!
📺 MIN-DAL on TNT pic.twitter.com/x2gtPepx8V
— NBA (@NBA) May 27, 2024
It only happened because the Dallas brass saw the forest for the trees instead of aimlessly qualifying for spring basketball, where it never had a realistic chance.
3. Some buy-low trades and an important lineup decision
Remember how I said the Mavericks were still straddling the line of relevancy in early February? Well, they didn’t sit on their hands. When it came time to make more deals at this year’s trade deadline, they went out and acquired not one but two crucial rotational players from two of the worst teams in the league, the Washington Wizards and Charlotte Hornets.
Enter center Daniel Gafford (ex-Wizard) and forward P.J. Washington (ex-Hornet).
Gafford has been a godsend to the Mavericks, giving them ample size that allowed them to flat-out bully the Western Conference playoff field. Meanwhile, Washington has been the kind of do-it-all-forward who takes the hardest perimeter defensive assignment every night and makes all the clutch corner 3-pointers.
Imagine acquiring two solid starters on a Finals team at one trade deadline. That’s what the Mavericks did.
Daniel Gafford gets the last word.
Off the Luka Doncic lob, Gafford with the dunk and the foul.
Mavs take commanding 3-0 lead over Timberwolves in West Finals.#NBAPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/4KYnPhOcgw
— Duane Rankin (@DuaneRankin) May 27, 2024
When we go beyond these trades, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd made a critical lineup decision this postseason: he effectively benched Tim Hardaway Jr.
Hardaway played nearly 27 minutes a game in the regular season, the equivalent of an entrenched sixth man. But in the playoffs, the guard was a matchup issue on both ends of the court — for his own team. Rather than see if Hardaway could play through it, Kidd made the executive decision to precipitously cut his minutes and hand out more playing time to younger, more effective role players like Jaden Hardy and Josh Green.
The Mavericks haven’t missed a beat ever since.
