Are the Dallas Mavericks simply a bad franchise/organization?

[Saul Goodman]

Im a Raptors fan, so if one calls Dallas a bad franchise then so are the Raptors.

[dirkforpres]

Your question basically boils down to a simple “Is Mark Cuban a bad owner?”, to which I’d say the answer is a resounding yes

[JayMKE]

Cuban is overrated as an owner and businessman but I wouldn't call him a bad owner or that the Mavs are a bad org

[Exp0sed]

Your question basically boils down to a simple “Is Mark Cuban a bad owner?”, to which I’d say the answer is a resounding yes

exactly
we've grown accustomed in the past to bad owner = cheap af

just because Cuban has never been shy about spending and he's overzealous in his fandom\support doesn't mean he's not a bad owner

I'm stil kinda shocked that even last year with Luka already on board and clearly a superstar, he still had that whole Nico debacle
i mean srsly, how does it even get to such a situation in 2022?
that's on Cuban for sure

[Airmiess]

Peak LeBron could contend with this roster, its no indictment to Luka - hes only human.
/s

I've never been a fan of the model of paying guy's exuberant amounts of money to stay in bad situations. Guys like KG, Dame, Beal, Luka etc. just wasting prime years running back the same mediocre teams over and over and organizations being intellectually dishonest about their chances.

But at the end of the day the players are choosing to play the long game, unless they pull an AD or Kawhi.

[Harry Garris]

First of all I think it's high time we move past the "Mavs don't get free agents" take. Yes it's technically true, but also no franchise outside of the Lakers and Heat have really signed many high level free agents. The vast majority of championship teams were built through the draft and trades.

And that's the area that's lacking with the Mavericks. They haven't been good in the draft outside of hitting on the Dirk and Luka picks, which is a great start, but a single star team isn't going to win a championship outside of extreme outlier years and you need to supplement those guys with other talented players to make it a championship level roster. The Mavs have not done a very good job of doing that.

[KGtabake]

They did well in risking with Porzingis.
It didn't go well for various reasons (health, chemistry with luka, poor mindset) but at the time few people criticized the move. That means they have already tried to pair Luka with a star player and you can't accuse them for that.
Neither for the expenditure in salaries (yes they're overpaying the wrong players but they are paying much money either way).
Their cap situation is problematic and they don't have picks soon enough. Even if they did, those picks wouldn't have been of any significant importance due to them being good.
So either they try to work with what they have and maximize it or they blow everything and keep only Luka. That's for the near future.
Generally, they've been a top10 franchise in the history of the league quite easily.

[JRoy]

Ridiculous.

DAL is an excellent franchise.

They overachieved last year and have more than their share of underperforming contracts but they have a young top 5 player who seems happy to be there.

A few good moves and DAL is right back in contention.

[Texas Chuck]

And that's the area that's lacking with the Mavericks. They haven't been good in the draft outside of hitting on the Dirk and Luka picks, which is a great start, but a single star team isn't going to win a championship outside of extreme outlier years and you need to supplement those guys with other talented players to make it a championship level roster. The Mavs have not done a very good job of doing that.

Dallas definitely historically has had its most success building via trade not free agency/draft. But when you draft a top 15 all time guy and another guy who is already obliterating many of the 1st guy's records, I don't think we can hand wave that away. This is the most important thing of all. There are teams who draft a lot of contributors, but consistently fail to draft the franchise altering player.

And its important to remember two things:

Dallas has mostly been a very good team meaning their 1st round picks are in the mid to late 20's.
Dallas trades away 1st round picks very frequently.

So they haven't actually made that many draft picks to being with. And yes other than hitting on Josh Howard,Jae Crowder, and Jalen Brunson late in the draft they haven't gotten a lot of contributors there. Devin Harris was okay, but he was a top 5 pick. Josh Green in his 3rd year is finally starting to contribute so maybe he's another find.

But the strategy under Donnie Nelson was to largely avoid the draft and free agency and stay above the cap and trade shorter contracts for longer contracts attached to better players, leveraging Cuban's willing to spend. And hard to argue with those results around Dirk honestly. One of two teams in NBA history to win 50 games a decade straight--and the other one was in their division at the exact same time.

Right now they lack a 2nd difference making player. That's a gaping hole, but its also really the only one. Luka is fine as your star and they have plenty of quality role players. They just are missing that other top 20-25 player. And this summer they own all their own 1sts again finally paying off the Luka/KP trade debts. So its up to the team to find the star that wants to come pair with Luka and they can now make the volume picks/swaps deals we've seen for stars in recent years.

Too soon to panic. Now not too soon to have a sense of urgency to add that piece to Luka. That needs to happen this summer if at all possible. But its not really been possible before now once KP showed he wasn't the answer.

[Nailon]

I think the best thing the Mavs do is to turn discarded players into useful role players (Brunson, DFS, Kleber, Powell) but for every of one those there is a literally a ton of busts. Not thinking hard, there's a list of players who have been in Mavs roster in the last 2-3 years that arent in the league anymore: Wes Iwundu, Niccolo Melli, JJ Reddick, WCS, James Johnson, Justin Jackson, Marquese Chriss, Sterling Brown, Campazzo, Trey Burke.

I bet the next FA signings will be the likes of Josh Jackson, LiAngelo Ball or Ignas Brazdeikis

[Sactowndog]

You would think with an innovative and energetic owner like Mark Cuban with significant business ties and global recognition would be able to enable more success with his franchise.

But instead, they've only won 1 championship (which was a huge fluke because LeBron didn't feel like taking matchup advantage vs JJ Barrea).

More importantly, it's how they operate on a business end. They could've benefited the most from hiring a GM like Daryl Morey but instead, they have these no-name GMs who simply can't make any free agent splashes and significant upgrades to roster around their star players (Nash, Finley ...Dirk...now Luka).

I remember back in my high school days, they were recruiting Rashard Lewis super aggressively with the new rennovated locker rooms and gave him a first class tour of the city. He was a Houston raised kid who would've loved to be close to home but instead, he rejected the Mavs immediately.

Then in 2012-2013, they tried to recruit Dwight Howard and went hard after him. I felt at the time, this was the best move Dwight could've made for this career alongside Dirk. But instead, Dwight chose Houston over them as well.

Like what is going on? Are free-agents just not interested in the organization? Or are they intimidated by the Cowboys being such a controlling force in that market that they'll feel irrelevant? Or is it that the organization doesn't have proper personnel in place to attract pieces?

At this pace, Luka needs to leave Dallas if he wants to win.

No way he can win on a trash team like this.

Lukastans constantly looking for someone to blame while ignoring Luka’s ball dominance and poor defense might keep good players from wanting to play there.

Dallas is the anti Golden State near the bottom of the league in passes made. It’s not fun basketball and highly likely a reason basketball has not attracted free agents like Malik Monk who would have fit well as a shooter on the team.

[MavfanAus]

But instead, they've only won 1 championship (which was a huge fluke because LeBron didn't feel like taking matchup advantage vs JJ Barrea).

Read as far as this nonsense and thought nah, I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the mini essay. What a horrible take.

[MavfanAus]

I think the best thing the Mavs do is to turn discarded players into useful role players (Brunson, DFS, Kleber, Powell) but for every of one those there is a literally a ton of busts. Not thinking hard, there's a list of players who have been in Mavs roster in the last 2-3 years that arent in the league anymore: Wes Iwundu, Niccolo Melli, JJ Reddick, WCS, James Johnson, Justin Jackson, Marquese Chriss, Sterling Brown, Campazzo, Trey Burke.

I bet the next FA signings will be the likes of Josh Jackson, LiAngelo Ball or Ignas Brazdeikis

I can see what you're saying however Brunson was never a discarded player. Guy was a two time national champion and the only reason he wasn't highly sought after and dropped so far in the draft was because of his height and age.

[Texas Chuck]

oh man its bad when a poster from the team that passed on Luka for Bagley and haven't made the playoffs in nearly 2 decades are trash talking Dallas, because, wait for it, they didn't sign Malik Monk.

I mean......

[ConSarnit]

A better question might be: are the Mavs a bad organization NOW?

They've been able to accomplish the most difficult thing for any franchise: find a true franchise player (twice). The guy behind that (Nelson, or maybe Nelson(s)) is gone. Then they hire a shoe salesman to replace him. I'm a little skeptical of that move. The 2018 sexual harassment stuff is not good.

Either way, they have time. The Luka clock probably doesn't start ticking until 25/26, their pick debt to NYK should end this year and their bad deals (Hardaway, Bertans) end before Luka might get antsy. Niko can be replaced if necessary.

I'd rate them as "meh" because I don't really like the Niko signing. Probably somewhere around the 15th best organization.

[Lockdown504090]

They took a lot of risks and failed since dirk. The luka deal easily could have been one of them as well.

[Archx]

Dallas is the anti Golden State near the bottom of the league in passes made. It’s not fun basketball and highly likely a reason basketball has not attracted free agents like Malik Monk who would have fit well as a shooter on the team.

Hm, i wonder what Mavs are doing right then since they're ahead of GSW in the standings

Maybe GSW are passing too much?

[Bob8]

You would think with an innovative and energetic owner like Mark Cuban with significant business ties and global recognition would be able to enable more success with his franchise.

But instead, they've only won 1 championship (which was a huge fluke because LeBron didn't feel like taking matchup advantage vs JJ Barrea).

More importantly, it's how they operate on a business end. They could've benefited the most from hiring a GM like Daryl Morey but instead, they have these no-name GMs who simply can't make any free agent splashes and significant upgrades to roster around their star players (Nash, Finley ...Dirk...now Luka).

I remember back in my high school days, they were recruiting Rashard Lewis super aggressively with the new rennovated locker rooms and gave him a first class tour of the city. He was a Houston raised kid who would've loved to be close to home but instead, he rejected the Mavs immediately.

Then in 2012-2013, they tried to recruit Dwight Howard and went hard after him. I felt at the time, this was the best move Dwight could've made for this career alongside Dirk. But instead, Dwight chose Houston over them as well.

Like what is going on? Are free-agents just not interested in the organization? Or are they intimidated by the Cowboys being such a controlling force in that market that they'll feel irrelevant? Or is it that the organization doesn't have proper personnel in place to attract pieces?

At this pace, Luka needs to leave Dallas if he wants to win.

No way he can win on a trash team like this.

Lukastans constantly looking for someone to blame while ignoring Luka’s ball dominance and poor defense might keep good players from wanting to play there.

Dallas is the anti Golden State near the bottom of the league in passes made. It’s not fun basketball and highly likely a reason basketball has not attracted free agents like Malik Monk who would have fit well as a shooter on the team.

You should ask yourself, why unselfish Jokic cannot get good players to join him or why Giannis didn't get the right help until Jrue trade? And Jrue is not typical star either. Even great LeBron had to change a team before winning something. Why players didn't wait in line to come in Cleveland? It looks to me that not getting stars to join him isn't specifically Luka's problem.

[Dirk]

You would think with an innovative and energetic owner like Mark Cuban with significant business ties and global recognition would be able to enable more success with his franchise.

But instead, they've only won 1 championship (which was a huge fluke because LeBron didn't feel like taking matchup advantage vs JJ Barrea).

More importantly, it's how they operate on a business end. They could've benefited the most from hiring a GM like Daryl Morey but instead, they have these no-name GMs who simply can't make any free agent splashes and significant upgrades to roster around their star players (Nash, Finley ...Dirk...now Luka).

I remember back in my high school days, they were recruiting Rashard Lewis super aggressively with the new rennovated locker rooms and gave him a first class tour of the city. He was a Houston raised kid who would've loved to be close to home but instead, he rejected the Mavs immediately.

Then in 2012-2013, they tried to recruit Dwight Howard and went hard after him. I felt at the time, this was the best move Dwight could've made for this career alongside Dirk. But instead, Dwight chose Houston over them as well.

Like what is going on? Are free-agents just not interested in the organization? Or are they intimidated by the Cowboys being such a controlling force in that market that they'll feel irrelevant? Or is it that the organization doesn't have proper personnel in place to attract pieces?

At this pace, Luka needs to leave Dallas if he wants to win.

No way he can win on a trash team like this.

Can you compare the Mavericks to all the other teams in the league.

Then rank them?

That would be worth reading.

But I guess if you did that, you'd notice that your idea is ludicrous and you wouldn't open this thread to begin with.

[Jadoogar]

meh they recognized they had a huge talent on their hands very early and tried to accelerate the timeline with the Porzingis trade. Say what you will not but Porzingis was considered a massive talent at the time (albeit injury prone). It was a big swing, big risk big reward type of move. Unfortunately it didn't work out.

The problem with drafting a guy like Luka is that you almost immediately become too good to tank properly thus taking you out of the lottery very quickly. Similar thing happened with Lebron in cleveland. So in these cases, it could be the right move to trade picks for talent.

They tried to build a Harden Rockets type team because Luka is a similar type player. They need to find their version of Chris Paul for this team to have a chance at the finals. Their best course of action right now might be leverage their future for a second star kinda like what the Bucks did with Jrue.