Ever since the blockbuster trade that sent Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers and Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks, two franchises have been trending in completely opposite directions.
Basketball gods didn’t smile upon the Mavs for the wildly controversial decision to trade Doncic at the deadline. AD injured his groin in his debut, Kyrie Irving suffered a torn ACL, and Dereck Lively, Daniel Gafford, and Caleb Martin remain out with their respective injuries. As a result, Dallas fell all the way down to tenth place in the Western Conference with a 33-36 record.
John Hefti-Imagn Images
The possibility of a deep playoff run has dwindled, with many around the league expecting the Mavericks to shut AD down for the season. According to the latest report by NBA insider Marc Stein, however, that will not be the case. In fact, Davis has been assigned to the NBA G League to play himself into game shape to return to the Mavs before the end of the season.
With 13 games before the end of the regular season for the Mavericks, this is certainly a questionable decision.
The highest seed the Mavericks can go up to is ninth, and they are currently 1.5 games behind the No. 9 seed, the Sacramento Kings. Even if they manage to go on a run down the stretch and overtake the Kings, they will have to win two Play-In games in a row to earn the privilege of losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round.
The more reasonable approach here would obviously be to let Davis rest and maximize your lottery odds. The Mavericks need to turn their focus to the future and landing a top-10 pick in the draft is an excellent way to do so. By pushing for meaningless wins down the stretch, they are only lowering their chances of picking in the top 10.
This seems like a classic case of the sunk cost fallacy. The Mavs are continuing to throw good money after bad because they can’t accept how badly they screwed up in the Doncic-Davis trade, while the Lakers continue their chase of home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.