Few NBA teams had a more disappointing end of the regular season than the Dallas Mavericks. Considered a rising property in the West on the back of scoring machine Luka Doncic, the Mavs made what they hoped would be a big move to the League’s upper echelon in February when they added controversial star Nets guard Kyrie Irving, who had become as well known for his overt antisemitism as his elite play. Since that time, Dallas played well below .500, to the point that with only two games remaining, they were on the edge of missing the Western Conference play-in tournament – the foothills to the playoffs. That’s when things got weird.
Playing Chicago in a game that would largely decide Dallas’s post-season fate, head coach Jason Kidd sat five of his team’s top players – including Irving. Then early in the second quarter, Kidd pulled out Doncic for the entire rest of the game. Playing with a roster that looked like a summer league game, the Mavs lost by three and were thus eliminated from playoff contention. That means that instead of entering the playoffs, they’d enter the draft lottery, where they’d most likely end up with a top-10 draft pick. Thus marks the end of a disappointing season.
Only not so fast. Not surprisingly, the NBA front office is none too pleased with what appears to be a clear case of trying to lose on purpose – or tanking as it’s called – to get a better draft pick. Not only did the loss give them a better pick – it kept them from losing the pick altogether. Because the Mavs owed the Knicks their draft pick if they finished higher in the standings. Which means that losing on purpose (allegedly) allowed Dallas to do what every NBA team seems to want to do. To get better players.
The League is currently investigating and will likely come up with some kind of penalty, which I’m guessing will be a fine that billionaire team owner Mark Cuban will not mind paying in the least. What they likely won’t do is take away their draft pick, which would be much more fair, assuming you believe that what they allegedly did was wrong. To be clear, Coach Kidd basically admitted as much after the game. So this is not a tough case.
This is also not a new story. There are as many stories of teams being accused of trying to lose on purpose as there have been player drafts. Leagues have taken steps to make it better, like by using a lottery system to pick draft order instead of directly ranking records. But it doesn’t change the fact that when you lose more, you’ve got a better chance of picking a better player, which could have transformative impact on your franchise, even in the age of endless player movement. Just ask the San Diego Chargers, who did not have Peyton Manning play quarterback for their team.
We all know why this is a problem. The NBA can’t sell a premium product at a premium price if we’re getting bargain basement players. While it may not matter in the corporate economics of the NBA, just remember that some family spent a whole lot of money for maybe their one game of the year to watch the best players on the team sit on the sideline. That’s a tough narrative for players that make tens of millions of dollars a year.
But perhaps more to the core, this reminds us that the goals of the overall business and those of individual teams aren’t always aligned. The Dallas Mavericks want to win a championship, something they were not going to do this year whether they made the playoffs or not. So their best bet is to find better players, something they can do by getting good draft picks. Which is exactly what they did. On the other hand, the NBA’s goal is to make a lot of money by selling elite basketball entertainment, manifest through fierce competition. And while the Mavericks’ decision last week may have advanced their goal, it didn’t do much for the League. Which is why as long as we incentivize losing as a pathway to winning, you’ll always have star players sitting on the bench at the end of the year.
I know that’s disappointing to fans of teams who opt to end their seasons early instead of going for a post-season run. But no one’s had a more disappointing season this year than the Mavericks themselves.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler
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