If you scroll down the list of biggest team-level disappointments in the NBA last season, not many clubs rate higher on the scale than the Mavericks.
Sure, the Bucks got bounced in five games in the opening round of the playoffs after logging the league’s best regular-season mark. And the Celtics boasted more than enough talent to get back to the NBA Finals for a second straight year. But then there’s Dallas, which failed to make the postseason at all just one year after making it to the Western Conference finals with superstar Luka Dončić.
And that reality raises the question of what this year will look like for the franchise, which recently traded for Boston forward Grant Williams and handed free agent Kyrie Irving a three-year contract for north of $120 million.
