DALLAS — Well, that escalated quickly. Late Friday morning, less than 15 minutes after listing no players as questionable or doubtful for Friday night’s home game against Chicago, the Mavericks suddenly declared that five players will miss the game for rest or injury recovery.
The players who will sit out are starters Kyrie Irving and Tim Hardaway Jr. and key reserves Josh Green, Maxi Kleber and Christian Wood.
With Dallas’ extremely faint play-in tournament chances requiring wins over Chicago and on Sunday against San Antonio AND an Oklahoma City home loss to Memphis on Sunday — it’s evident that the franchise has turned its attention toward trying to keep its first-round pick in June’s draft.
Not coincidentally, Friday’s opponent directly factors into Dallas’ ability to keep the pick. The pick is top-10 protected. If the pick falls outside the top 10, it will be conveyed to the Knicks, as the final compensation for the teams’ 2019 trade that brought Kristaps Porzingis to Dallas.
Dallas currently is tied for the NBA’s 10th-worst record. With which team, you ask? Why, it’s Friday’s opponent, the Bulls, of course. Which sets up a fascinating scenario for Friday night, as the Bulls — who are locked into the Eastern Conference’s last play-in tournament spot.
“Fascinating” in Friday's case probably will be a euphemism for “bad basketball.”
It appears many Mavericks fans are getting their wish, albeit later than they probably hoped. Before Wednesday night’s home game against Sacramento, Mavericks governor Mark Cuban was asked whether he understood why many fans on social media have expressed a preference to tank in an effort to keep the draft pick.
“Players don’t want to do that,” Cuban said. “Players aren’t gonna do that.”
But did Cuban understand fans’ point of view on the matter? “Oh, yeah, of course I understand,” he said.
When the Mavericks defeated the Kings that night, it increased their chances of seizing the last play-in spot to 52% over Oklahoma City’s 48%, according to basketballreference.com’s daily playoff probabilities report. The Thunder’s victory at Utah on Thursday night, however, flipped those percentages to 77.2% for OKC and 22.8% for Dallas.
Back to Cuban’s point about players: It’s the organization and primarily coach Jason Kidd who largely decides who plays and when and how much. So for Friday night’s Bulls fight it appropriately will be “The Matator” Luka Doncic and a bunch of reserves, although Doncic’s time on the court might be short-lived and a nod toward the fact it’s “I Feel Slovenia Night” in AAC.
Given Friday's turn of events, don’t expect the Mavericks to put their best sneakers forward, so to speak, for Sunday’s home and season finale against the Spurs.
Finishing with the 10th-worst record is no guarantee of getting a top-10pick, but it would increase the Mavericks’ odds to 65% of doing so when the NBA draft lottery is held on May 16.
During that Wednesday interview, Cuban was asked about the scenario of securing a top-10 pick and whether it would be more valuable to use in a trade or to draft a young talent.
“We’ll see what’s there, what’s available,” he said. “We’ll see what’s on the board. Hopefully we don’t know and we’re shocking the world, but if we end up being in the lottery, so be it.”
After Friday morning’s turn of events, it truly would shock the world if the Mavericks find a way into the play-in tournament.
