The Craziest Season in History: A Full Timeline of the 2024-2025 Dallas Mavericks

The Craziest Season in History: A Full Timeline of the 2024-2025 Dallas Mavericks

[Music] [Applause] [Music] Mavericks won’t be a top six seed. Um, I struggled to see how the Mavericks failed to win 50 plus games this upcoming season unless there’s injury. Looks like he’s in pain. Can contend for the one seat. Absolutely. I do think this is a Luca year. I don’t want to spoil too much cuz on Friday we’re doing our awards predictions, but it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. I do think this is the Luca MVP season, which therefore means I think the Dallas Mavericks are going to be winning a lot of games. Luka has been in that position walking like that for the last 20 seconds. My big hope, I’ve been asked this, what what do you think the Mavs need to do at the trade deadline? My hope and dreams this year is nothing. This is by far the most uh balanced and stacked roster of the Luca Donich era. I hope we go to the trade dead end line. Just maybe needing some marginal moves here and there. Just think this fan base needs to take a [ __ ] deep breath. Like for what I’m seeing on Twitter, what I’ve seen in my chat, what I’ve seen in comments, there’s something is like chemically off in the brain of of this fan base currently. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why they’re such on edge. Like we’re coming off of a great season. Life is good. Life is good. Life is good. Life is good. Life is good. Life is good. [Music] Today on most dangerous jobs in the world. Today we head to Dallas, Texas. a job that has become increasingly more dangerous over time. Season ticket sales reps for the Dallas Mavericks. All right, guys. Real quick, eyes up here. As you all know, it’s that time of the year again. It’s time to start making those phone calls. Start locking in those season tickets for next year. Okay, I know it’s choppy waters out there. I know it’s hard times, but stick to the script. The worst thing they can say is no. All right, I got my guy Todd with me right here. We’re going to walk through it real quick. We’ll do a sample call. That way you guys get the feel of it. All right. All right, Todd, go go go ahead and uh and make the call, buddy. Hey, is this Roman? Hey, Roman. This is Todd with the Dallas Mavericks. Just seeing if you’re interested in renewing your season tickets for this season. Well, I I don’t I don’t think I can do that. I I um Okay. Well, no, I don’t know. Okay, that feels all right. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. All right. All right. Okay. Okay. See, the worst thing they can say is no, guys. There’s nothing to be worried about. Um, he told me to strap a bomb to my chest and run. All right. Okay. All right. Uh, that’s an anomaly. All right. Don’t That’s That’s an exception. That’s not what people are going to tell you. Probably not. Okay. Let’s All right. Let’s sit down. Let’s Let’s not Let’s not get too Let’s not freak out too much. Yeah, it’s been a little bit rough. No two ways around it. The turnover rate here has been crazy to say the least. I mean, the amount of stuff we hear on these phone calls, you know, and I let them get it off their chest. I’ll let them get it off, but I got to explain to him. You I I’m just a sales ticket rep. I didn’t make the trade. Okay. Right. No, I I get I get that. I’m just I know his box score plus minus was high. Trust me. I’m not the one who made the trade is what I’m trying to tell you. So, I don’t know what you want me to do about it. Huh? Stick what? Where? I don’t think that fits there. It’s just you got to go one day at a time. And what if they tell me to strap a bomb to my chest? Just make the call and see what happens. Okay. All right, Susan. Hi, this is Jeffrey with the Mavericks. Just calling to see if you’re interested in renewing your season tickets. Um Dirk Dirk Nitzki is still on the team. Uh yes. Yes, he is. He’s still there. He’s still playing. Great. You’re in. I’m going mark you down. All right. Great. You won’t regret it. Okay. Thank you. Goodbye. All right. Great. Great job. What? Susan. What? What was her last name? Susan Anderson. All right. Yeah. No, that’s that’s my grandma. Yeah. No, she does it every year. It’s It’s the only one we’ve sold. [Music] It’s over. Time to say it again, Boston. Anything’s possible. Banner number 18 has been secured. The Celtics are NBA champions. It’s a surreal feeling. We did it. We did it. This is a video about the 2024 2025 Dallas Mavericks. So, why am I starting it here? Well, the seeds of this demonic rotten plague ridden fruit that was the past season for the Mavericks were planted in June of last year. more specifically game three of the NBA Finals. You would think for a team that was making only its third Finals appearance in franchise history that the vibes would just be through the roof. And for the most part, they were, but there was a stench and odor of filth that was radiating off of this team. And we weren’t quite sure where it was coming from at the time, but it’s obvious now. It was the rotting corpse of the 24-25 Maverick season. Dead before it even got here, trailing in the finals 20, the Maverick season was hanging on by a thread. The Celtics, powered by a masterful second half performance by the soontobe finals MVP Jaylen Brown, took a 21-point lead with 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter. The season was flashing before the Maverick’s eyes. Now, you could make an argument it was over 12 minutes into the series when Chris Stabs Porzingis is [ __ ] ass. scored 11 points on five shots with two blocks in just seven minutes in the first quarter of game one despite not playing in over a month. [ __ ] you, man. Losing this game would officially cement the series as being over. No team has ever come back down 3 0. No team will probably ever come back down 3 0. And to the Mavericks credit, they fought back in this game. Kyrie Irving went three of three from the free throw line after getting fouled by Drew Holiday on a three to close the gap to only three points. The Mavericks were in the middle of a monstrous 19-3 run in only three minutes of game time. I was in attendance. The energy was incredible. It genuinely felt like the Mavericks were going to come back and win this game. And then they were right back in the series. 2 minutes later, Luca Donuch, who was admittedly in the midst of a classic Luca Donuch meltdown, fouls Jaylen Brown trying to draw. He charged two feet inside of the three-point line. Completely inexplicable. Completely inexcusable. Why? He He’s just trying to make a play. Why is it inexcusable? Luca had five fouls. He was done. The Mavs challenged it. They lost. Luca’s game was over. He fouled out of a three-point game in the NBA finals with 4 minutes left. Kyrie hit a jumper to make it a 9392 game with 337 left, but unfortunately that was the closest the Mavs would get. The Celtics went on a 13-7 run to slam the door shut and take a commanding 3 0 series lead. It was a letdown. I have to be honest. It was a disappointment. Luca’s performance led to massive media backlash after the game spearheaded by Brian Winhor and his just epic takedown of Luca on ESPN right after the game ended. His defensive performance is unacceptable. The Celtics are attacking him. They are ahead in this series because they have attacked him defensively. They have begged him. They have talked with him. They have pleaded with him. He is costing his team because of how he treats the officials. His performance in this game is unacceptable. And the reason why the Mavericks are not going to win, the narrative had been set. Luca Donuch was not a winning player. A narrative that is complete and total [ __ ] [ __ ] by the way, because up until this point, Luca Donic and the Dallas Mavericks had won more than five NBA franchises had ever won in the history of their team. Labeling a player who just won Western Conference Finals MVP a losing basketball player just completely and totally insane to me even to this day. But it’s important to mention this and it’s important to lead with this in my opinion cuz it comes back down the line. In fact, I’m I’m fast forwarding a little bit here, but Brian Winhorse looked back at this moment after the Luca Donic trade and pointed out that it was strange that nobody inside of the Dallas Mavericks organization pushed back against this narrative. The seeds of the poopy plant that were soon to bloom for the Dallas Mavericks were being planted. The Mavs would blow out the Celtics in game four of this series to stay alive. It was one of the biggest blowouts in the history of the finals. Actually, Derek Lively hit a three, which up until today is still the only three-pointer he’s ever hit in his career. Tim Hardaway Jr. would tie a record for most threes in a quarter in finals history. Now, did I allow myself to thank the Mavericks for making an epic I mean, no team’s ever come back down three. Did I allow myself to thank the Mavericks for making an epic comeback in this series? Yeah, I did. Because, you know, you you want to know what it is? I have some type of brain damage, most likely stemming from years of being a Dallas Cowboys fan. We’re still trying to get to the root of it. But the Celtics would win game five, 106 to 88, raising their 18th championship banner, and that was that. I mean, this 23-24 season, we’re talking about the Dallas Mavericks, was an adventure in their own right. They went from being 26 and 23 at the trade deadline, treading water, to making the NBA finals only a few months later. It was a wild roller coaster of emotions. And finally that roller coaster of emotions was over. But uh it’s like if you’ve ever been to Six Flags, it’s like leaving the Judge Roy, whatever the [ __ ] the name of that roller coaster is, or you’re just going up little tiny hills. It’s like leaving that roller coaster and immediately getting transported to the Texas Giant. You You don’t even know what a roller coaster. You don’t even know what a [ __ ] roller coaster is. This might feel like a long- winded intro for a video about the 2024 2025 season, but trust me, the context here matters significantly. Honestly, it’s it’s kind of insane looking back at this season now in retrospect. And I had a lot of fun doing it. This video is going to be on the longer side, so grab a [ __ ] bucket of popcorn if you want this. It’s like when you watch a movie and there’s a massive plot twist at the end and then you go back to the start of the movie and you rewatch it and you look for all of the clues that were left for you. It’s like, oh, it was all he was always Ka. There wasn’t a limp. He was always Kaiser. So, now before we go any further, I want to make one thing very clear. This is not a video about the Luca Donuch trade. Obviously, it is a massive piece of the season. It’s the biggest piece of the season. It’s the thing that people will remember forever about this season. Of course, we’re going to talk about it, but there is so much [ __ ] that went wrong this season for the Mavs, even before the trade happened. And my goal here is to outline just how cartoonishly bad it got. I mean, ser if this were a movie, like the letter box reviews, I’d be on there. By the way, I’m on letter box if you want to find me. I’d be on there saying, “This is just so cartoonish.” Like, who would even believe half the [ __ ] that happened in this movie? That’s what this season was like. [Music] I mean, I was watching just as a basketball fan and, you know, I did see like, man, I could really help this team. They they just they’re right there. They’re maybe a few pieces away. Not a big not big adjustments, but just very little adjustments from getting over the top. I mean I mean Dirk went through it in his first finals and Luca did too. So we’re knocking on the door and that’s a really really got Harrison took over as the Mavs GM a few years ago. The team has been one of, if not maybe the most aggressive team in the league during transaction windows. sometimes to the detriment of the team and the city as a whole. And this past offseason was no different. They landed one of the most intriguing free agent targets of the summer in Klay Thompson. Three years, $50 million for a sharpshooter that was clearly a desperate need for the team, a team that shot 30% from three in the NBA finals. They also made one of the better moves of the entire off seasonason, trading away Tim Hardaway Jr’s contract along with three second round picks for Quinton Grimes, who was about to embark on his own separate Mavs roller coaster journey. This trade came hours after dumbass Calvin Booth had to trade three second round picks to get off of Reggie Jackson’s $5 million contract. So, this was this was a shrewd maneuver by Nico Harrison. I mean, genuinely one of the better moves of the offseason last year. Even though Nico Harrison went on record to say bringing back Derrick Jones Jr. was priority 1A and 1B of the offseason. I can I just interject here? I hate when people say that it’s priority 1 A and 1 B. Just say it’s priority one. There’s not a 1A and 1B if it’s all the same [ __ ] thing. It’s just priority one. There’s a 1A 1B of the same thing. How does that make any sense? You only say that when it’s two different things. It became obvious quickly that was off the table once Derrick Jones Jr. suddenly changed agencies days before free agency started. To the Mavs credit, they did pivot pretty quickly and got one of the more sought-after free agents of the offseason, Anaji Marshall, on a three-year, $27 million deal. And then, of course, the move of the off season, bringing Spencer Denwy back to the team on a veteran minimum contract. Hey, anytime you get a team leader in minutes and assists on a minimum contract, you have to do it. Yes, Spencer Denwy led the team in minutes this past year. There’s a reason we’re doing this [ __ ] video. announced today that Mavericks guard Luca Donic sustained a hit during workouts this week resulting in a left calf contusion. Donic will be re-evaluated as necessary in a week. Dante Exom reported today the Mavs announced that he is going to be out or that he had successful wrist surgery. Sham Shirani of of ESPN now added that he is going to be out for 3 months after wrist surgery. Uh, it’s it’s only fitting that it wouldn’t take long at all for the season to get off to a horrendous start for the Mavericks. Only 22 days before opening night, Luca suffers a left calf contusion during a workout in training camp. While he wouldn’t miss any regular season time, he would miss the entirety of the preeason, something that would have a clear and obvious effect once the real game started. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Dante Exom, who suffered a fractured wrist only days later, requiring surgery that would sideline him for the first 48 games of the season. Exum had carved out a sizable role for himself on the team the season prior, and his absence would be felt in a massive way, pretty much immediately for this team. Another notable moment from this preseason that would become an important storyline later on was Quinton Grimes turning down a Maverick’s contract offer. It would later come out that the Mavs offered Grimes a contract extension in the $8 million per year range, which I think is fair value at the time for a guy like Grimes, who’ been dealing with injuries over the past few seasons and hadn’t really solidified himself in the NBA just yet. But Grimes decided to bet on himself and it was a gamble that would eventually pay off for him. Of course, what we know now, and honestly, we kind of knew it at the time, too, is this was essentially Quinton Grimes planting the tombstone of his Dallas Maverick’s career. Him getting traded down the line before the trade deadline was basically a foregone conclusion at this point. Soldier, eyes up here right now, private, here at Slightly Bias, we support our veterans, and now you can too. Limited time only, fully delusional. Buy your Mavs 2425 veterans hatch right now. Got about 40 left in stock and I will be dropping a pre-order link once those sell out. You’re going to look so damn good with your new hat on, soldier. So damn good. No, we do not accept CLA payments. I pledge allegiance to the flag. Look at that. And we stand for the flag here at Slightly Bias Network. Buy a hat right now at fullydelusional.shop. Link in the description. That’s fullydelusional.shop. [Music] What a reaction. Four straight losses by the Mavericks. One possession. Four straight. I I did this. I made a video. What is going wrong for the Mavs in the clutch? In that time, I told you in the clutch time from 5 to 2 minutes, they’re really good. And that showed tonight. They they tied the game up. It was incredible. From two minutes onwards, they are awful. And that beared fruit again tonight. I mean, holy [ __ ] This team I they’re not in, guys. and in their current form right now. I’m not saying they’re going to suck at the end of the season. I’m not saying the season’s over or anything like that. They suck currently. They [ __ ] suck. They suck. They suck. They suck. They suck. They suck. They suck. They suck. The season would get off to a bang for the Dallas Mavericks who beat the San Antonio Spurs 120 to 109. First game of the season. And Luca had a nice little sick pass over the head to PJ Washington. I’m I’m in here somewhere. I’m like down I don’t know. I’m like in that general vicinity. And I don’t know if I was ever on television. I mean, if I was, people would definitely know, but I No one said anything, but I’m down there somewhere. Klay Thompson, honest to God, one of the more high-profile free agent signings in the history of the Mavs. Six threes in his debut. We’re we’re starting to cook. The vibes were astronomical. I mean, mind you, I predicted that this would be the best offense in the league over the course of the season. So, I mean this just just like I I felt like the sky was a limit. I felt so good. Honest question for you guys. Did the vibes was this the peak? Was this the peak of the vibes during the season? It really might have been. Oh, what’s that? Maxi Kaiba hurt his hamstring in the second game of the season and would have to miss the next nine games. Okay, let’s bookmark that cuz that’s going to be a reoccurring trend. Despite the season opener that made it feel like the Mavericks offense was going to get out the gates in a full speed sprint, it resembled more of a newborn toddler crawling than it did a run. It what it actually felt like was that old flash game on the computer. You guys remember that Q-op or something like that where you had to control the Olympic runner with your keys? I I never What a stupid ass concept for a game. Why do I have to control an Olympic runner? How the [ __ ] is he in the Olympics if I have to control him myself through a keyboard? Never really made all that much sense to me. But that’s what it felt like. just disjointed and weird and out of control. And on top of that, it would not take that long for injuries to start mounting up for the Mavericks. Luca looked like he suffered a season ending injury early on against the Timberwolves only to get a free basket on the other end cuz he didn’t make his way to the other end of the court. This is still one of the funniest Luca plays. I swear to you, I thought his season ended right there, right? I was like, well, that’s Luca just suffered a catastrophic injury and then he got the basket without having the job. I I can’t I mean, now that we know he wasn’t hurt, it’s pretty funny to look back on. Derek Lively hurt his shoulder before a game against the Indiana Pacers, which would require him to miss three games. PJ Washington would suffer a knee sprain in that same game, leading to a fivegame absence. And despite the high expectations and what it looked like opening night, frustrations would mount pretty early on for this team after the refs left the biological threat on the court, missing Daniel Gaffford, clearly getting shoved in the back by Royce O’Neal seconds before a laughably soft foul call in the final seconds of the game. Yousef Nerk went to the free throw line with8 seconds left. went one of two and the Mavs resorted to their classic dog [ __ ] final play of the game that they’ve gone to for years, which was get the ball to Luca Donuch at half court and pray that his 360 no scope heave to the basket goes in. He lost to the Phoenix Suns that was frustrating in and of itself, but it was the symptom of an ongoing trend for this team. To start the season, the Mavs were getting literally next to nothing from their bench. It’s got to be addressed. We’ve talked about it. There’s got to be action. It’s got to be some energy. Somebody’s got to come with some [ __ ] energy, a [ __ ] flat. Um, so that’s that’s where it starts. I honestly totally forgot about this before going back and looking at it. Uh, I think part of it is the fact that the Mavs bench ended up becoming a bit of a strength for them by season’s end, but it’s rare you see Jason Kid that vocal and frustrated in a postgame press conference. to have that that early in the season. I I guess it was a side of things to come. There was another very big concern early on in the season for Dallas and that was I mean they were dreadful late in games. Horrible. One of the most anticipated games of the early NBA season was Klay Thompson’s return to Golden State. And that game ended similarly to a lot of early season games for the Mavs. The Warriors gave out these captain hats that look like the drunk guy from Tik Tok World of T-shirts or whatever his name is. and Clay, you know, for a massive return game where I’m sure he was very nervous and excited, played pretty well all things considered. 22 points for the captain, for Klay Thompson, for the other Splash Brother, but of course the Mavericks collapsed late in the game. Steph did the classic, you better stay here scream fest at the camera. You better stay here so you could have been in the Jimmy Trade. But it would really turn bad a couple days later when the Mavericks had just an atrocious loss to the abysmal Utah Jazz. Thanks to in large part to just a mind-numbing defensive breakdown late in the game, the Mavericks were now 1 and6 in clutch games to start the season. And something was officially [ __ ] up. Something did not feel right with the way things were trending for this team. To make matters worse, Luca Donuch was in the midst of one of his worst stretches of his career. In fact, it was so rough, I made an entire video about it early in the season, kind of breaking down and detailing what exactly was going wrong. The conclusion that I came to then, and I still hold this belief now, that it was just due to the fact that he missed the preseason. He did not have his legs under him just yet, and that was clear and obvious watching him play. He wasn’t generating the power you’re used to on these step back threes, which resulted in a lot of the shots falling short. He wasn’t getting to the rim at the level you’re used to. And I think a lot of that was just due to tired legs from just not being ready for the season cuz he missed the entire preseason. Over the first 13 games of the season, Luca is averaging 288 and8 on 53% true shooting and is 4.1 BPM. I don’t know. I don’t I don’t really [ __ ] know about this stat, but it’s just available and it’s just a good frame of reference, I guess, was the lowest he’s had in a 13 game stretch since the 2021 season. Kind of crazy these numbers, which are like objectively okay numbers. Like if you get a guy who’s giving you 28 and 8 on 53% true shooting, it’s really not that bad. It’s crazy that’s considered a horrible stretch for Luca because that’s just the stratosphere of player that guy is in because he’s that good. And and I do think part of the Maverick’s late game struggles was a symptom of Luca’s slow start to the season, especially from an efficiency standpoint. So now all of a sudden, this team that had very lofty preseason expectations. This team that just came off of an NBA Finals appearance was five and seven to start the season with some horrible losses sprinkled in. We mentioned when there’s a plot twist in a movie, you go back to the start and you look for all of the little breadcrumbs that were left along the way. And you do have to wonder missing the preseason, the slow start to the season, and then the injury issues we’ll get to in a bit. How much of that led to what we got on the night of February 1st? You cannot help but wonder when you go back and look at this stuff, especially considering things got significantly weirder a week later. The Mavericks blow the Pelicans out of the water in an inseason tournament game. I I was in attendance. I can’t lie to you. I was having to Google search players on the floor for the Pelicans. I don’t like that’s how down bad they were. This was the down bad Olympics between these two teams. But one of the most pivotal moments of the season was about to happen. We didn’t know it at the time and it wouldn’t set in until much later how important this stretch here was, but Luca Donuch suffered a wrist injury early in this game. But he would finish the game. He would have a really really strong game. I mean, he was bombing threes from 30 ft away in the in the fourth quarter. He comes out after the game and says it’s nothing all that serious. No reason to think it was all that serious, but he would miss the next five games because of this injury. Now, I’m using air quotes not because I don’t think he got hurt, but because this became a very important setpiece during the Luca Donic trade saga that would happen months later. It would be reported in the weeks following the trade in this super extensive article that The Athletic dropped that his injury wasn’t really an injury at all and was more of an excuse to give Luca some time to boost his conditioning since he didn’t get that chance in the preseason. Now, in the months that have followed, this has been a little contentious, but this was reported in a very well sourced athletic article, so it’s it’s at least worth mentioning. Regardless of the reasoning, Luca missed the next five games for the Mavs. And to their credit, they went 4- one over this stretch, thanks to in large part to newcomer Naji Marshall, who is really starting to come into his own after a slow start to the season. Over the first four games of this 5game no Luca stretch, Naji averaged 23 points per game on 63% shooting. Now, of course, nothing good that happened to the Mavericks would last long at all this season as a mysterious illness started to sweep through the locker room like the [ __ ] plague. And I forgot all about I forgot all about this. This how crazy this season, but this was like the biggest thing of the season up until like January was this plague like illness that had infected the locker room after the Mavericks played Jimmy Butler who was dealing with a plague like illness. Jimmy Butler in a lot of ways like Dracula, everywhere he goes, a [ __ ] plague followed. This would put Naji’s breakout on hold as he would miss five out of the next six games with this plague-like illness that infected numerous members of the team over the next month or two. It was like a reoccurring story. I forgot all about like that. That’s what was fun about this project is I forgot about a lot of this [ __ ] and it’s just ah yeah, you didn’t know how innocent you were at the time when you were freaking out about this stuff. You had no clue. You had no clue what was in store. First few weeks of December were probably the best weeks of the season for the Mavericks. Luca returned from his wrist conditioning sbatical on December 1st versus the Trailblazers and did so in a way only Luca could. Dropping 367 and 13 on 62% shooting. This kicked off a six-game stretch where he averaged 3110 and 9 on 52 4273 splits. A six-game stretch that saw the Mavericks go 5-1. capped off with a 4511 and13 performance from Luca and a massive road win over the Golden State Warriors. Luca would miss the next two games out of precaution with uh heel contusion that he was dealing with. Nothing really that serious, but he was back and so were the Dallas Mavericks. How they even made the inseason tournament quarterfinals, which they qualified for after a 12116 win over the Memphis Grizzlies on December 3rd. It it’s kind of crazy looking back at any inseason tournament highlight or game, especially when you’re like months removed from the season ending because it it just doesn’t feel like that happens so early in the season and the NBA season is so long and so many things happen that you just look back on you’re like, “Oh yeah, that’s right. That happened. That was a thing. It’s just it’s crazy looking back on it.” And outside of a few injuries here and there like Jaden Hardy sprained his ankle in a game against the Wizards which caused him to miss seven games. Maxi Cleba got swept up in that disgusting plague that caused him to miss three games. The Mavs were rolling and more importantly, they were healthy. I mean, relatively healthy. On November 24th, they were a measily 9 and 8. By Christmas Day, they were 19 and 10. They had won 10 of their last 12 games, and they were the three seed in the Western Conference. Their starting five of Luca, Kyrie, Clay, PJ, and Lively had a net rating of plus 25 and 246 possessions. That still ended up being the third best lineup in the NBA over the course of the entire season amongst lineups that had 200 or more possessions. Things were really starting to look up for the Mavs. Okay, little Tommy, why don’t you tell Santa Claus what you want for Christmas, buddy? Okay. Uh, I’d like a Nintendo Switch 2, please. That’s what I would want. Okay. And is there any game you would like to play? Uh, with Minecraft. That’s the game. Minecraft. You don’t want any other game? You want Minecraft? Yeah. Well, it’s what I You asked me what I wanted and that’s what I want. So, okay. All right. All right. Fair enough. All right. Thank you very much. On to the next one, please. Can we Yeah. Appreciate you. All right. All right. Okay. Santa, what’s up, man? How’s it going? Hey, it’s going good. What’s uh what’s your name? Uh John. John? Yeah. Okay. Uh what can I get for you, buddy? Just I want the Mavericks to have a stress-free regular season. That’s really it. That’s all I care about. They’re just their regular season’s just so stressful. I just want it to be nice and easy moving forward. So, um All right. That’s That’s an admirable wish, but why why don’t we keep uh something maybe a little bit more realistic? Maybe something material that I could grab. I don’t You told little Timmy he could have a Nintendo Switch, too. I don’t understand. Yeah. Well, I can go into Best Buy and get little Timmy a Nintendo Switch, too. So, Well, yeah, but I mean, I stood in line for an hour and a half to sit on your lap and tell you what I want. What? Why would I do that if you couldn’t give me what I wanted? I don’t understand. Okay. I I don’t know. I’m not Jesus Christ. I’m Saint Nick. I don’t know if I can work miracles. Okay, buddy. So, why don’t you ask for something maybe a little bit more in line with what the [ __ ] we’re doing here? Okay. I don’t get why why is what I’m asking for so he wants a Switch a Nintendo Switch 2 to play Minecraft. You can play that game anywhere. What? What’s wrong with my request? This isn’t a two-way conversation. Okay, John, can you get that through your thick [ __ ] skull of yours? Huh? Uh, I mean, uh, how about an Xbox? I already have an Xbox. Okay, then how about an Xbox controller? I don’t need a controller. Why would I need a controller? Christ, kid. John, you’re not even Johnny. You don’t even go by Johnny. You’re Are you even a child? You’re a fraud, buddy. You’re a fraud. All right. All right. Yeah. Why don’t you get the hell out of here, man? How old are you, by the way? 27 years old. Get the [ __ ] out. No, you’re I’m getting out of here. Why don’t you go in ch Why don’t you learn Chinese? I already know Chinese. I’m Santa Claus. I go everywhere. It was the fifth straight Christmas Day game for the Mavericks. Important to know because honestly I don’t know when they’ll get another one. I’m just being brutally honest. The Mavs were taking on the Timberwolves who they beat in the conference finals the year before. This was a rivalry the NBA was really trying to boost and groom and the Mavs came out super flat trailing 51 to 38 with 230 left in the second quarter. Luca planted on his right leg to get to that patented step back to create space against Jaden McDaniels and he passed the ball out. He strained his left calf. The Mavs would take a timeout and Luca would not return to the game. Luca would not return to an NBA court in a Dallas Maverick’s jersey. He would miss the next 22 games. And the next time we saw him play, he was a member of the Los Angeles Lakers. To the Mavs credit, they put together an incredibly valiant comeback effort in this one that came up just short. But little did we know at the time this was it. I mean, we knew at the time this was a pretty serious injury for Luca, and I think we all just kind of assumed we were about to embark on a bit of a rough stretch while we waited for him to get healthy, but we did not know. How could you have? It’s fitting that on a brisk Christmas day in Dallas, Texas in Avalanche was quickly approaching. Now, it probably wasn’t a good thing for our postluca injury expectations that they beat the pathetic sons, folks. I call them the pathetic sons cuz quite frankly, they’re so pathetic. run by a little Mad Ishbia. I called him little destructive Mad Ishbia. They beat the Pathetic Suns 98 to 89 in their first game after the Luca injury. But this game did come with some problems. Uh I mean, first and foremost, Naji Marshall beat the [ __ ] out of Yousef Nerkach, which nets him about a,000 points in my book. You’ll always be good in my book, Naji. After that, you’ll always be good with me. Just something about Nerkage. I mean, God bless the guy. Not really, but maybe. I don’t know. Now, unfortunately, Naji Marshall would get a 4game suspension because of this ruckus, and PJ Washington would get a one-ame suspension. Adam Silver, are you kidding me? You baldy. Look, I know you want to discriminate against people with hair, but this has gone a step too far. Something much worse was about to happen for this Mavericks team. It would come out after this game that Kyrie Irving had been dealing with a lumbar backsprain. Now, the reporting on this at the time was interesting. And going back and looking at it, it felt like his season was genuinely hanging in the balance here. Some of the reporting indicated that this might be something that required surgery. This might be something that at some point could knock him out for the remainder of the season. Now, fortunately for Kyrie, it wouldn’t come to that. Uh, not yet anyways, but he would miss seven of the next nine games managing this injury, and the Mavericks went two and five over that stretch. It wasn’t all terrible. Again, as is the case with injuries, guys further down the depth chart get an opportunity to showcase their talents. Quinton Grimes was one of these guys for the Mavs. Grimes went from getting a DNP coach’s decision against the Denver Nuggets in late November to averaging 25 minutes per game up until he got traded. He was a big-time bright spot for this Mavericks team. And it appears as though, and as of the time I’m recording this, he has not signed a new contract just yet. But it appears as though his gamble that he took on himself early in the season would pay off in a major way. He’s he’s going to get paid more than the $8 million the Mavs are offering him. Once he got inserted into the rotation, he averaged 12 and a half points per game on 474076 shooting splits. Even a guy who was essentially written off entirely. Jaden Hardy was putting together a really solid 10game stretch, averaging 13 points per game while shooting 52% from three. Even with some of these guys stepping up in a major way, the absence of Kyrie Irving and the absence of Luca Donuch was just too much for this team. The losses were starting to mount up fairly quickly. Maybe no loss was as frustrating as a January 15th game to the Pelicans where the Mavs essentially lost on an atrocious missend call. I mean, listen to Mark Fawwell on the broadcast. You missed it. You missed the game is over. This game would be a major point of frustration for another reason. It was the first game Derrick Lively, who suffered an ankle injury the game prior, would miss with what was being reported at the time as a minor ankle injury. He was originally listed dayto-day and was out of a walking boot and walking on his own within 3 days. It seemed like a pretty standard run-of-the-mill ankle injury until, well, of course, cuz it’s the 2425 Mav season until it wasn’t. 5 days later, Jason Kid strangely proclaimed that Lively might not be dayto-day and that the injury might be more severe than we initially thought. Well, it turns out Kid was right as Lively would go on to miss the next 35 games with a fractured foot. That’s right, it wasn’t an ankle sprain. He had a fractured [ __ ] foot. We would not see him again until April 2nd. Hilariously enough, around this time, I posted a video on my channel called This Is What a Season from Hell Looks Like. Go back and look. I still have that childlike wonder in my eyes. An innocence. An innocence only walking through hell could take away. Or this guy owning your team. While the Derek Lively injury did suck, the Mavericks were one of the deeper teams in the league and a lot of that depth comes from their front court so they have the guys to step in and take over when needed. Dwight Pal is essentially this team’s fourth string center, but he’s more than capable of stepping up and being a backup big in this league. We’ve seen him do it his whole career. Oh, he hurts his hip only a couple days later and misses the next 15 games. Yeah, that that adds up. Well, at least you have Maxi Cleba, who’s a vet in this league and has helped this team win playoff series in the past. Oh, he breaks his foot on January 26th, then misses the rest of the regular season and is never seen in a Mavs jersey again. Yeah, that lines up. Actually, this brutal injury stretch for the Mavs capped off what was a nightmarish month of January. The Mavericks had three starters miss significant time over the course of this month. And if you include Dante Exom, six rotation players either missed significant time or suffered significant injuries in the month of January. The Mavs would go six and 10 in January. And after being the three seed on Christmas Day, found themselves clinging onto the ninth seed by the time February rolled around. I want to interject really quickly here to say even though the Mavericks only won six games in January. Two of them were against the Oklahoma City Thunder. In fact, they went 3 and one this year against the Thunder despite how terrible the season was. They just seemed to own OKC. And to make matters even worse, Luca didn’t play in any of the three wins. They were 0 and one when Luca played against the Thunder. 3-0 when he did it. I I guess they just owned this team. I don’t know. Again, there was some shred of light at the end of the tunnel. Daniel Gaffford stepped up in a major way, averaging 30 minutes per game, 18 and a half points, 10 and a half rebounds, and three and a half blocks per game. I mean, those are [ __ ] all-star numbers damn near during Derek Lively’s absence. All the Mavs needed to do was hold down the fort until their big dogs got back. [Music] Guess you need me to explain to you what the [ __ ] happened. Uh, the Mavs have traded Luca Dodic midseason. Mid-season out of nowhere without consulting anybody, without consulting Luca. You might see this and think, “Oh, Luca demanded a trade.” Didn’t happen. Did not happen. I believe that getting an alldefensive center and an allNBA player with a defensive mindset gives you a better chance. We’re built to win now and in the future. [ __ ] you were just built now to win. You were just built to win. You were just in the NBA finals. [Music] Luke is 25 years old. What’s the biggest slap in the face? What hurts the most right now? The last time we saw him and the last time we will see him. I I had some people in the chat. You think he comes back in free agency? Are you [ __ ] me? He might pull his pants down and take a [ __ ] and piss in the middle of the [ __ ] floor when he comes back here. [Music] The last time we as fans saw him on the court for our team, he got injured in a Christmas Day game. That’s it. Our last memories of him in a Maverick jersey is limping off the court. Dallas is now $600,000 under the luxury tax. [Applause] Yeah. Yeah. [Music] I already dropped a feature length video on my channel detailing my thoughts and emotions surrounding this trade right when it happened. So, I’m going to keep things short just in terms of this trade specifically because things would just continue to get more and more insane in the days, weeks, months following it. But late night, February 1st, the Dallas Mavericks traded Luca Donuch, Maxi Kibba, and Marke Morris to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and a future firstround pick. Something that still pisses me off about this trade to this day, the Mavericks gave up a second round pick in this trade to the Jazz. How the [ __ ] does that work? How are the Mavericks giving up literally anything in this trade? It still to this day makes no sense to me. They had to do it for salary cap reasons. Are you [ __ ] kidding me? Salary cap reasons. Anyways, it was the craziest trade in the history of sports. It didn’t make sense then. It does not make sense 3, four, 5 months later. Uh, and it’s been talked about to death by me, by everybody who talks about the sport. And this video is really about the events that led up to that trade and then the events that followed the trade. So, cue up that circus music, baby. February 2nd, 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, barely even 12 hours since the trade was officially announced. Jason Kid and Eco Harrison give what was quite possibly the most awkward press conference of all time in a random Cleveland hotel conference room. Yeah, you know, when we just looked at our situation, we thought that trading Luca was in our best interest. Jason, and when I say we, I mean me and Jason, me and Jason were kind of in lock step on this. No, I never spoke to Jason directly, but I just knew vibes wise were sort of like this. So, I knew he’s on the exact same wavelength as me. Me and Jason have been friends for a long time, so I I can tell when he thinks someone’s fat. And I knew I knew he was thinking that. He might not say it, but I knew he was thinking it. I wouldn’t have made this trade if I didn’t think Jason Kid was 100% in on it. And again, he didn’t tell me it, but I know I know he was. I know deep down he was. I had a vibration vibration in the universe yesterday. Jason kid thinks Lucas fat. That was going through my head and I knew he was thinking it, so I had to trade him. A couple of hours later, the Mavericks would lose by 43 points to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the team’s first game post Luca trade. Notably, Kyrie Irving was not seen on the bench in this game. February 3rd, the Mavs take down the Luca Donic banner outside the American Airlines Center. February 4th, 11:00 a.m. Central Standard Time, the Los Angeles Lakers host their Luca introductory press conference where he pointedly says he had no intentions on ever leaving Dallas. Rob Pelinka with his [ __ ] motorcycle jacket on. Who do you think you are, man? You just walk around, [ __ ] gets handed to you on a silver platter, and you think you run things. You think you’re some big shot collar? You don’t do [ __ ] I could be the GM of the Lakers. I could do your exact job right now. 12:02 p.m. Central Standard Time. and the Mavericks traded season standout Quinton Grimes and a second round pick to the 76ers for Caleb Martin. Later that night, Max Christie scores 15 points going 44 from three in his Mavs debut. He would go on to average 175 and three on 50 40 85 shooting in his first seven games with the team leading Mavs fans to jokingly at least I I think most of these were jokes comparing him to SGA in the Paul George trade. Uh unfortunately over the last 25 games of the season, Max Christie would go on to average 9 and a half points on 37 3387 shooting splits. It’s not not really SGA like. February 5th, the Luca Donic pillar was removed from Dallas Lovefield airport. Those of you who don’t live in the DFW Metroplex, I need you to understand that these pillars, these MAVs pillars at this airport, they’re not just literal pillars, but they’re also metaphorical pillars for the entire city as a whole. The city’s entire foundation really relies on these pillars. They’re they’re a source of inspiration for everybody in the city. February 6th, Mark Stein reports that there is no timetable for Caleb Martin’s return and his injury is actually worse than it was originally believed to be. It would be over another month until he made his Mavs debut. Hours later, the trade deadline would come and go with the Mavericks mercifully doing nothing else to jeopardize the state of the franchise, although there were rumors that they were somewhat interested in going after Kevin Durant. February 7th, Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and Caleb Martin have their introductory press conference. Nico Harrison was notably absent. Man, Caleb Caleb looks really happy. February 8th, it was Anthony Davis’s debut with the Dallas Mavericks, and it was also the team’s first home game since trading Luca. And uh it it went about as well as you could have anticipated. [Applause] Bring him back. He’s not back. Bring him back. He’s not back. Bring him back. He’s not back. Bring him back. He’s not back. Bring him back. He’s not back. Bring him back. He’s not bring tip off, fans lined Victory Plaza outside the stadium to let their voices be heard. I would estimate there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of fans that would just kind of come and go over the course of the next couple hours, making sure their voices were heard. I mean, some of the chants, like I heard a bring back Maxi chant. Like, really? I’m online. I I see what you guys say about Maxi Klea every day. Well, I don’t know why we have to do that one. Bring back Mar even heard a bring back Marke chant, which was just like, okay, I mean, sure, I guess. Uh, bring him back. He’s not fat. That was the best one probably. Uh, [ __ ] Tim McMahon chant there. Tim McMahon was getting a lot of Now that I’m looking back on this, Tim McMahon was getting a lot of [ __ ] sent his way around this time. I was there. I was in attendance. I was joining in the chance. I was documenting the whole thing. I I will say I did find it a little bit funny that we’re It was like this big protest. [ __ ] this team. And everyone’s like, “Yeah.” And then the game started and everyone went into the stadium cuz they bought tickets for the game. It was a little bit funny. But the the protest I thought was a huge success through and through. And while outside of the arena it was like a freedom of speech zone, inside was something resembling North Korea. Signs were confiscated. Fans were told to take their shirts off if there were some messages on it that they didn’t like. The whole game passed without a single fan being shown on the jumbotron. The arena music was purposefully played as loud as possible so they could drown out any chance, any booze, any dissent. I mean, this was some tyrannical [ __ ] But Patrick Dumont wasn’t the only psycho in the building that day. Anthony Davis was a complete and total psychopath out there. He put up 24 points, 13 rebounds, five assists, and three blocks in the first half of the game. It had to be the best debut I’ve ever seen a player have on a new team. At least the best first half I’ve ever seen. Now, I didn’t have tickets to the game itself, so I went to a bar right outside the arena. And I gotta say, the energy was a little bit funny in there because right when the game started, everyone was still just like, “Fuck, Nico, piece of shit.” Right? Then Anthony Davis throws a lob to Daniel Gaffford and everyone’s like, “Okay, that was that was kind of cool.” Hits a step back three. Everyone’s like, “Whoa, all right. Okay, now we’re talking a little bit.” Then has a monster put back dunk. Everyone’s just like, “Oh, I saw the vision the entire time because you’re a genius.” is then of course you had AD screaming, “I’m here. I’m here.” Then late in the third quarter, he reagravated his abductor injury and would miss the next two months of basketball. Turn that [ __ ] circus music back on. Oh, of course PJ Washington also hurt his ankle in this game. And of course, there can’t just be like a normal injury with this team at all. While PJ would originally only miss three games with this injury, he would only last four before admitting he probably came back a little too early and his injury wasn’t fully healed, leading to him missing the next seven games. February 9th, Patrick Dumont is quoted saying he only wants players with great work ethics, listing all-time greats, including Shaquille O’Neal, hilariously enough, but he never mentions Dirk Noitzky. like the easiest get out of jail free card ever in the city of Dallas, Texas. Just mention that guy’s name. Speaking of Durk, February 10th, Luca Donuch makes his Lakers debut in Los Angeles with Durk in attendance. The only games Durk attended in person this season was Luca’s debut in Los Angeles and Luca’s return game to Dallas. A sign that I can confirm is true that there is bad blood and animosity between this Mavs current leadership group and Dirk Nitzky. Unfortunately, as much as that pains me to say, hey, Kyrie Irving was named to the All-Star game, so we we actually do get some good from this season. Surely that will last long, right? He’ll he’ll make it NBA team, right? The Mavs would lose a game to the Kings. Really, who gives a [ __ ] But what was important about this game is fans were getting kicked out of the stadium in droves. This led to a very viral moment where a fan on the jumbotron mouth fire Nico while doing a karaoke challenge thing. Just letting you guys know, if you tag me in this photo, you are blocked on Twitter. If you’re wondering, if you’re watching this video like, “What? when it’s slightly spot. It’s more than likely for this reason. Daniel Gaffford, huge bright spot for the Mavericks over the last month or two, suffers a scary looking knee injury in this game as well that would require him to miss the next 20 games. And with fan frustration at an all-time high, the injury frustration at a tipping point, Jason Kid would completely skip out on his postgame press conference. This is the only time he has done this in his Maverick’s tenure. It is very rare for a coach to just completely not speak to the media following a game. Things were bad. I actually funny enough remember the night that this was happening. People were speculating. People online were like, “Oh my god, did he just quit?” I think he just quit. Some people were even speculating that he walked into Nico’s office. And so this what some people were saying and I just don’t. February 13th, the Dallas Mavericks beat the Miami Heat 118 to 113 in their final game before the All-Star break. They had miraculously put together a three-game winning streak following the injury of Daniel Gaffford. Obviously, Derek Lively out. They had no centers really on the roster. Olivia Max’s prosper was starting at center during this stretch. I mean, their rotation, I’m going to read off to you their rotation in this game against the Miami Heat. Kesler Edwards got 40 minutes. Max Christie, Spencer Denwy, Dante Exom, Omax, Naji Marshall, Brandon Williams, Jaden Hardy, and Kyler Kelly. No, not Kylo Ren. No, not Kyler Murray. Kyler Kelly, huh? That’s a hoop grid. By the way, just keep that name in the back of your minds cuz that’s a hoop grid answer 10 years from now. Cut the music for a second. I wanted to detail the Mavericks rotation they had in this, you know, meaningless February regular season game against the Heat. Just cuz I want to point out that no matter how bad things got for this team, the guys on the court never once quit. I mean, they fought hard as hell all season long. And I think it’s important that the players know that the frustration, the rightful frustration that the fans felt all throughout the season, none of it was ever pointed at the players who were on the floor for the Mavericks. I honestly even think Jason Kidd did a really commendable job this season, all things considered, when you factor in all the stuff working against this team from the moment the season started pretty much. All right, turn the music back on. February 16th, longtime assistant coach Daryl Armstrong would be arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. God damn, this one kind of slipped through the cracks. I’m not going to lie to you. February 21st, this is one of the funniest ones to me. Honest to God. February 21st, the Maverick social media team posted a video produced by rapper and Dallas natives Duros team that includes players who have been traded being silhouetted out of the video. This [ __ ] just cracks me up to this day, man. What the [ __ ] was Maxi? Why was Maxi Kleba silhouetted out of this video? Why is Ma Why is Maxi Kleba’s shadow figure? Now, of course, online, everybody immediately thought this was Luca Donuch and everybody freaked out, including myself, cuz I thought it was him, just being honest with you. And you can’t say it’s like, well, that’s a little bit racist. All white people look alike. That’s what you’re saying. That’s not what I’m saying. They’re silhouetted out. So, I I don’t really know, but this is just hilarious to me. And I know the Dallas Mavericks themselves did not produce this video, but that really nobody nobody behind the scenes was like, “Hey, I’m not sure. I’m I’m just not sure. All things considered, this is what we want to go with right now. They still What? I mean, what I mean, what are we doing? February 25th, the Mavericks play the Lakers for the first time since the Luca trade. They would lose the game 1079. It was a modest 19-point triple double. I mean, modest 19 triple double is hilarious to say, but it is Luca. And he was talking his [ __ ] to the Mavs binge, screaming at Jason Kid at one point in this game. Also, the camera was panning to Nico after every step Luca took. It was not a fun viewing experience really whatsoever for Mavs fans at least. And and to make matters worse with this game, there was all of the different ad campaigns that were going on. All my exes live in Texas. Jordan was really ramping this one up. And it just, you know, you guys could have done like fun marketing campaigns while he was in Dallas. That’s that’s just what I’m saying. You guys could have done it. It’s just annoying to me cuz I saw at the time people were saying stuff like, “Oh, now he’s in LA. They’re they marketing push.” It’s like he wasn’t like he wasn’t playing in Charlotte. God bless Charlotte. No offense to Charlotte. He wasn’t playing in [ __ ] Charlotte. He was play like Dallas is one of the biggest cities in the country. He still could have that that could still could have happened. March 1st, Quinton Grimes pours more salt into the gaping wound that was Mavs fandom by dropping 44 points in just his ninth game as a member of the 76ers. He averages 25 points, five rebounds, five assists on 47 3775 shooting splits over the last 20 games of the season. Just a reminder, the Mavericks gave up a second round pick in this trade. They gave up a second round pick in this trade. Now, with all that being said, this was a trade I defended at the time in a trade. I will say now, even with the power of hindsight, I do understand the logic of it just because you didn’t feel like you were going to be able to afford Quinton Grimes. That would turn out to be true. There’s no way they could pay Quinton Grimes what he’s going to get. And you wanted to get a player under a pretty friendlyish contract in Cayla Martin for a few years. It does make sense to me the process. Uh but it does look like poop out of a butt now. Like that’s just the truth. March 3rd, the Mavericks find themselves in what was about as close uh to a must-win as you could have in a March regular season game against a Sacramento team they’re fighting with in the standings. Kyrie Irving was doing everything he could to will this team to victories. In the 10 games since the Luca trade, he was averaging an absurd 40 minutes per game. Keep in mind this was with a reported lumbar backsprain and he was also averaging 28 points per game. His workload was insane. And with 2 minutes and 35 seconds left in the first quarter, Kyrie bangs right knees with Yonas Valenunis on a drive to the rim that causes him to lose his balance, hyperextending his left knee when he lands, tearing his ACL. Kyrie would shoot his two free throws before exiting the game, getting showered with chants and cheers from the American Airlines Center. I mean, you got to keep in mind at this time we weren’t sure we would see Kyrie Irving in a Mavs jersey again. I mean, he did have a player option entering the summer. And the trend was the moment your ass gets hurt. You’re out of here. You’re packed up and shipped out. Just a completely and totally devastating injury that just I mean, heartbreaking. It breaks your heart. This is a guy who is doing everything that he possibly could while dealing with a back injury to propel this team to victory. Literally hurt his back carrying the team and he basically pays in basketball terms the ultimate price for it, suffering one of the worst injuries you can suffer. Now, I’m I’m super happy that Kyrie did get end up getting paid this summer, so it didn’t affect him that much financially at the very least. But it just [ __ ] sucks, man. He He didn’t deserve it. He just didn’t He deserved to finish out the season, make an allNBA team, get showered with praise and love for the season he was having. He He didn’t deserve this. It It really is sad to think about. At least the Mavericks had some young guards like Jaden Hardy who are ready to step up and prove that they belong in the league. Oh, he also got hurt in this game and had to miss the next seven games with an ankle sprain. Yeah, of course, that makes sense. Any hopes this team had of doing anything at all this season had completely and totally dissipated into thin air at this point. No Anthony Davis, no Daniel Gaffford, no Derek Lively, and now no Kyrie Irving. They were only a game and a half back of the six seed Golden State Warriors entering this game, but they were 13 and 18 since Christmas Day and including this loss to the Sacramento Kings. They would go on to lose eight of their next nine games. To add to this catastrophe, the Mavericks were unable to add anybody to this roster on a standard contract due to the roster constraints that were largely brought on by the Caleb Martin trade since he was making more money than Quinton Grimes at the time. They literally could not have even signed me to a contract if they had wanted to. I I was I’m [ __ ] ready to get out there. I was ready to get out there and prove myself. Hell, I I even fit the billing now. I I belong on the team now. Sign me up. This does feel like a good time to highlight one of the legit standouts from the season. Brandon Williams, a two-way sneige that saw his playing time tick up dramatically after the Kyrie Irving injury. Over the next 12 games, he would average 25 minutes, scoring 16 1/2 points per game with 4 and a half assists on 56 37 88 shooting. And while he had to miss five straight games in early April because the number of games he was allowed to play as a two-way player was quickly running out, his stretch of legitimately great basketball earned himself a guaranteed two-year contract with the Dallas Mavericks. There is a chance Brandon Williams turned himself into a legit rotation player for an even healthy Mavericks team next year because of how good he was over the back half of the season. March 5th, Alex Jensen emerges as a candidate for the head coaching job at the University of Utah. Not really that notable of a storyline. Congratulations to Alex Ginsen, I guess. Round of applause, but it would foreshadow the mass exodus of assistant coaches that we would see in the following months. March 7th, injures his wrist, which requires surgery. He would miss the remainder of the season. Frustrating for a guy like, secondyear player, who just could not take hold of any of the opportunities that were presented to him during this injury riddled season for the Mavericks. I mean, he he would lose his rotation spot to two-way player Kesler Edwards. He he just it was that rough. March 9th, Naji Marshall scores a then season high 34 points and records 10 assists in a maz loss to the pathetic Suns. He is the first nonluca Donuch or Kyrie Irving Maverick to record 30 points and 10 assists in a game since Darren Williams back in 2016. Fun fact, I have a Dallas Maverick Skyline jersey with Darren Williams’ name on it. So, there you go. This kickstarted a really strong into the season for Naji. From March 3rd onwards, he averaged 18 and a half points, six rebounds, and four assists a game and basically operated as the team’s point guard over the stretch. March 13th, Cooper Flag hurts his ankle in the ACC tournament and gets wheeled to the locker room, leading to me tweeting this. You’re welcome. March 14th, the Mavericks lose to the Rockets 133 to 96. a game that by itself doesn’t really mean all that much. I mean, this team was completely and totally ass by this point. What was notable though was the fact that the Mavericks only had nine guys suited up for this game. Keep in mind, eight is the minimum amount of players you can have dressed for a game before you have to forfeit the game. I went back and I found this hilarious video of like three dudes on the Mavericks warming up before a game against the Grizzlies. I think I see Yeah, I think I see some of the Ball Boys getting up some shots just in case their number gets called in this one. There was a time, I think it was 2015, 2016, the Mavericks put Tony Romo on the bench for the last game of the season just to be like, “Ah, we love you, Tony.” Uh, there would have been no joke. Tony Romo’s his ass would have been on the floor getting 15 minutes a game if if it were this season. He would have been out there getting some minutes at the three. But this game against the Rockets was notable because one of those nine players, Dante Exom, would injure his wrist early in this game. And while it was initially reported that Exom would miss the rest of the season, he was able to return for the final two games of the regular season and the playing tournament. This team was legitimately in danger of having to forfeit games. That was not [ __ ] This was genuinely on the table. The following day, CAP expert Bobby Marts reports that it’s possible the Mavericks would have to forfeit games with the amount of injuries piling up and the team having to avoid playing two-way players since they’re only allowed to be active for 50 games a season before being converted to a standard contract. What a complete and total [ __ ] nightmare. Fortunately, or I guess unfortunately, the Mavericks would never have to forfeit games. I do think it would have been kind of funny like the season was already so bad if if we’re the team that ends up having to forfeit games. I think there’s some comedic value to be had there. The Mavs would eventually recover as much as possible. And Anthony Davis would even make his return against the Brooklyn Nets on March 24th, a game the Mavericks would win 120 to 101. And while AD wasn’t great in this game, it did at least signal some hope for this Mavericks team who went 6 and2 in the 18 games that Anthony Davis missed. Surprising, honestly, this surprised me a little bit going back and looking. They were seven and four in the games that he did play in, which you know, including playing games, which isn’t, you know, that bad, especially when you consider Kyrie only played in one of those. I mean, something we’re leaving here with something. March 27th, Josh Kitty hits a halfcourt three to beat the Los Angeles Lakers at the buzzer. This would end up becoming one of the most important outcomes to a game in the history of the Dallas Mavericks franchise. Thank you. Thank you, Josh Giddy. I’ve always been a defender of yours. I always said you were innocent. April 2nd, AD gets hit in the eye with a nasty elbow from Daniel Gaffford in a game against the Hawks. AD would stay in this game and he would even hit a game winner after dropping 34 points, 15 rebounds, and five blocks. The guy’s pretty [ __ ] good. For all you want to say about the trade, the guy is a good basketball player. Now, what is interesting about this game is he would come out in the offseason that AD would need surgery to reattach his retina. I mean, I don’t that sounds just insane to me. I heard the recovery process for this surgery, by the way, is you have to lay just down staring at the ground for two weeks. I mean, can you [ __ ] imagine this is an injury many people thought that he suffered in this game. So, I guess you got to give it to the guy for finishing out the season with one eye essentially. I mean, I’m a little bit confused at this. A detached retina. A week later, Luca would make his return to Dallas [Applause] in his seventh season from Slovenia. Number 77. [Music] That’s it. There’s also another mural. Another mural up on a Dallas wall today and it says simply fire Nico. That of course in reference to Mavs general manager Nico Harrison. Still a subsection of the fan base that’s very upset, very angry. Um is not over it, is not ready to move on. Maybe tonight brings some closure. [Music] [Applause] [Music] He dropped 31 points in the first half of the game, finishing with 458 and six. It was an obliteration. It went about exactly as you could have expected it to go and nobody cared. The crowd went crazy. anytime Luca hit a shot. Anytime Luca touched the ball, the crowd went crazy. This wasn’t even like a home game for the Lakers. You hear that sometimes. It was like a home game for Lakers. It wasn’t even like that. It was like a celebration of basketball in there. So, in a strange way, thank you, Nico Harrison, for reminding everybody just how much they love the sport, how much they love watching basketball, and how much they love watching a guy like Luca Donuch go out and play for your favorite team. I think some people needed a reminder about that and this game felt like a celebration of that, a celebration of Luca more than it was, I’m just rooting for the Lakers tonight or I’m rooting for the Mavericks tonight or I’m rooting against Nico Harrison tonight. It was just like let’s just go [ __ ] watch Luca play basketball. We’ve lost that. There were some hilarious moments from this game. Damn, that was a toughy. Come on. You can’t go from that to SP. I should have done the Mavs intros first. How the hell are you going in into Spencer Denwy off of that? And God bless him. But seriously, a couple of days later, the Mavericks would win their final home game of the season, beating the Raptors, I think. I have no clue who was playing in this game for them, and I was there. I I genuinely didn’t even know who the [ __ ] was on the floor. 124 to 102. Hey, who’s that? Holy [ __ ] that guy looks handsome and tall and fit. Anthony Davis finished this game with 2313 and 10 with seven blocks. This was like a real legitimate quadruple double bid. They would go on to lose the season finale to the Memphis Grizzlies, a game in which they sat everybody, finishing the regular season 39 and 43 and as the 10th seed in the Western Conference. Now, despite some of the deep playoff runs the Mavericks have had in recent years, and obviously a lot of that is due to Luca Donuch, this is the second time in three years that they have finished with a losing record and would eventually go on to miss the playoffs. Now, of course, the Mavericks just couldn’t go into the playing tournament normally like any other sane franchise would. They would have to do one more batshit insane thing to distract the team from stuff happening on the court and to just make a mockery of the fan base. Nico Harrison and the Mavs called a secret closed door meeting for local media members. I was genuinely wor I was genuinely worried for my friends who are in attendance at this thing. Like, do you guys want me to go? Like, is there a signal you guys? Should I just go sit outside the arena and just wait for the word and storm in? Really, all we got out of this thing were a bunch of non-answers and just rambles and rambles and rambles and rambles from Rick Weltz, the new Mav CEO. But it really was the secrecy and the strangeness of this event that turned this into a news story that did not need to be a news story. Why? I don’t I don’t even understand who who thought this was a good idea. I don’t get it. But there was basketball to be played, playing basketball to be played. Mavericks, Sacramento Kings, nine 10 seed game of the century. And the Mavericks would beat the Sad Kings, folks. I call them the Sad Kings cuz quite frankly, they’re so sad. They got that big Lithuanian, Damont Sabonis. He’s so big. Anthony Davis would drop 27 points. The Mavs would shoot 50% from three as a team in this game. But really, I think the lead storyline here was the continued breakout of one Brandon Williams, who finished the game with 17 points and five assists in only 17 minutes of game time. Now, fortunately for Mavericks fans, fans of basketball, the city of Dallas, local emergency rooms, the country at large, really the human race in totality, the Mavericks season would mercifully come to an end against the Memphis Grizzlies in the next playing game. And that was it. One of the most bizarre seasons in the history of professional sports had come to a conclusion. A team that was in the NBA finals not even 12 months before this was on the outside looking end of the playoffs, owed billions of dollars in hospital bills, had to declare medical bankruptcy, and had completely torn down any confidence and trust that their fan base had in them. I have never experienced or really even seen anything close to resembling this past season for the Mavericks. anything close. If if there is something, please let me know. This was the sports equivalent of a nuclear bomb. I’ve made this comparison before. Some people are like, “Dude, why do you keep weirdly talking about the nuclear bomb? Are you in some ways paid by the United States State Department?” No, I’m not. Okay. I just think it’s a it’s a good equivalence. It’s a good analogy to me. One standing was one of the biggest and strongest fan bases in the entire league. propped up by a competitive team that was led by a beloved homegrown superstar, a real legit top three player, an all-time great, a perennial MVP candidate that was completely wiped out and replaced with a Falloutlike radioactive wasteland where only diehard loyal stragglers were there hanging on for dear life, begging, just begging for anything to be hopeful for. Just a tiny crumb. Can you give us one tiny crumb of things to be hopeful for? And that was me. I’m one of those diehard loyal stragglers. Now, if there was anything normal at all about this franchise, the Mavericks would have gotten the 11th overall pick in this draft like they were supposed to. They would have drafted Casper Jakuchonis and that would have been that. I would have been saying, “No, guys, it doesn’t matter that he shot 12% in summer league, guys. It just that doesn’t.” We would have had a summer of just staring at each other trying to convince one another that everything was going to be okay. But of course, nothing about this team is normal. [Music] Come on. Here he goes with the fourth pick. The fourth pick is going to be the Charlotte Hornets. The MS are top three. Oh my god. Number three. The Sixers are three. The Mavericks are one or two. The Mavericks are one or two. The second overall pick. Who is it going to be? This is the mass on the lottery. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. There is literally no way this just happened. There is literally zero way this just [ __ ] happened. Are you kidding me? This just happened. [Music] I have to pour water on myself to make sure I’m not in some elaborate dream. They have never moved up in the history of their franchise. And they just won the lottery. They just won the lottery. Let me You want me to double check? Okay. Yep. It’s muted. I know you got the wire transfer. Great. No, I won’t say anything about it. It’s muted, dude. Call him that bomb. You call him that bald little head of yours. Yeah, I don’t give a [ __ ] if it’s rigged. Cool. Thank god, right? Like, that’s my stance on it. The draft was rigged. Thank god it was. Like, what are you expecting me to say? Thank goodness. I’m happy they rigged it. No, you don’t get it. It’s not fair. Life’s not fair. That’s another life lesson, folks. On April 22nd, the Mavericks won a drawing over the Chicago Bulls to break a tiebreaker for the 11th best odds in the NBA draft lottery. Remember, the only reason this was even possible was because of a halfcourt buzzer beater three by Josh Gaty. Thank you so much, Chicago. I know it hurts, guys. I know it hurts you, Chicago, but it would have hurt us more. I think that’s fair to say. And on May 12th, 2025, the Dallas Mavericks, one of the few teams in the NBA who have never moved up in the history of the draft lottery, would secure the number one overall pick in the draft. And not just any draft either. A draft with one of the most highly touted prospects we’ve ever seen, Cooper Flag. The franchise was saved overnight. There’s a reason you saw the reaction you saw from the Dallas Mavericks watch party, their front office, all the coaches, everybody. There’s a reason you saw that they were given a get out of jail free card. I don’t even know if I would say get out of jail. Get out of hell free card. Get out of the black hole free card. Get out of wherever wherever they found themselves. They got out of it. The franchise was saved overnight. Not by the shrewd maneuvering of a front office exec, but by sheer luck and good fortune. Maybe fortune does favor the bold. I don’t know. In a season where the Mavericks caught every single bad break they could possibly catch, sometimes literally in the form of broken bones, they caught the biggest break in the history of the franchise, the exact moment they needed it the most. And if you weren’t at least listening to some of the conspiracy theories before this, your ears had to be perking up a little bit after this. 1.8%. Those were the odds. 1.8% 8% chance for the Mavericks. Can you guys imagine what the [ __ ] we’d be talking about right now? I mean, seriously. No, dude. I I do think Colin Murray Boils can play alongside AD and Lively. You just got to trust it. Um, bad things were not done happening to the Mavericks, though. May 19th, Casey Smith, former longtime trainer of the Dallas Mavericks, who was quietly and strangely let go prior to the 23 24 season, was named trainer of the year for the New York Knicks. Congratulations to Casey Smith, of course, but this just highlighted how disastrous the training staff was for the Mavericks this past season. I mean, the reporting on this sounds like something out of a movie. It came out that Keith Belton, who was hired the summer prior to the season, wasn’t even certified to be an NBA trainer. And circling back to the lively injury that was grossly mishandled earlier in the season, there were reports of significant tension and a heated confrontation between Keith Belton and director of player health and performance Johan Bilsboro over the handling of the Derek Lively ankle injury. A confrontation that nearly turned physical. Fortunately, Belton was let go after this absolute disaster of a season. Maybe Nico had learned a lesson. Tough to feel all that confident in that though because by all accounts jealousy and narcissism was at the root of the Mavericks letting Casey Smith go couple of years prior. Is it possible to teach a psychopath these things? Speaking of the Knicks, I mean, I feel like this is just relevant to add in this video. There were rumors that lingered for weeks and weeks and weeks early in the offseason that the Knicks were hoping to get Jason Kid as the next head coach of their franchise. Now, this never really felt like that big of a deal or something to seriously worry about cuz Jason Kidd is under contract with the Dallas Mavericks. And by all reports at the time, the Mavericks were not going to let Jason Kidd go to the Knicks. But it was something that just was lingered for what felt like months that this was something that could happen. It was starting to get a little uncomfortable if I’m being honest with you. June 4th, Slightly Bias breaks his ankle in a tragic basketball accident gone wrong, which would require surgery to repair torn ligaments. It’s true, folks. This is my ankle. Huh? That’s what my ankle That’s what my ankle looks like. Not even the fans are safe. Not even the fans and beloved content creators are safe. He would also unfortunately develop uh DVT in the recovery process. So, shout out to my DVT brothers, Damen Lillard, Victor Wyama. I stand with you guys. June 23rd, Sean Sweeney, lead assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks, would leave the team to join the San Antonio Spurs coaching staff. Just days later, Jared Dudley would leave to join the Denver Nuggets, and God Sham God would leave to join the Orlando Magic. It was an assistant coaching carousel. Now, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that this stuff matters all that much to me. I’m just I’m not in the weeds enough. I’m not there to know just how much these assistant coaches matter. But it is interesting to me that they did all leave at once. I mean, I feel like that’s somewhat notable. Now, it does appear that the Mavericks have built a stacked assistant coaching staff led by Frank Vogle and Phil Handy, but there’s no way for us outsiders to know what the [ __ ] is going on with the assistant coach. I mean, how could anyone who pretends like they know? How could you know? How could you know what’s go how could you know what Phil Hi doing behind the scenes? A couple of days before the draft, the Mavericks did ink a couple of massive contract extensions. Daniel Gaffford, three years, $60 million. This one was a bit surprising to me, but a great deal, a great value for a guy like Gaffford. Kyrie Irving, three years, $120 million. Opted out of his player option to sign that. It was good to get these out of the way early for the Mavs to not have these lingering over their heads. Now, Gaffford does seem a little bit redundant with this current group, but with Anthony Davis and especially Derrick Lively’s injury history, his role will almost certainly be bigger than we’re anticipating it being right now. And after finally drafting Cooper Flag first overall on June 25th and scooping up Ryan Nimhard and Miles Kelly on two-way contracts a day later, the Mavericks put a nice bow on a relatively quiet off season by their standards by signing D’Angelo Russell to a 2-year $13 million deal and bringing back Dante Exom. Oh, and Cooper Flag would drop 31 points in his second and final summer league game, tying John Wall for the most points ever scored by a first overall pick, which is nice because just two days before this, Cooper Flag was officially a bust because he didn’t shoot well in his first summer league game. That’s just how it works, folks. Also kind of notable, Ryan Nimhard, an undrafted free agent, played so well in summer league that he would get shut down by the team for the last couple of games, which is pretty rare to see an undrafted free agent play that well. And uh that’s where we are now, or at least as of the time I’m recording this. I don’t know, maybe they’ve traded for LeBron James or something. By the time that I’m done editing and this is completely and totally out of date, it wouldn’t be that shocking, really. Just a wild, wild [ __ ] year. Oh, wait. We cannot end this on a positive note. July 15th, Derek Lively gets foot surgery to clean up bone spurs. All right, there you go. Now we can end. So, where does this leave the Dallas Mavericks exactly? On the basketball side of things, I don’t know. I don’t know if they’ll be good enough to compete for a championship realistically this upcoming season. And I think they’ll be a good team. Are they in the same tier as the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Denver Nuggets or even like the Cleveland Cavaliers? No, I don’t personally think so. But they have Cooper Flag, so it doesn’t really matter anymore. It’s it’s hard to overstate how much that saved their franchise getting a guy like that. So, they’re pretty much set from here on out because of that. Beyond basketball, where do the Dallas Mavericks stand with the fan base? It’s impossible to say really. Me personally, I’ve been a fan of the team for over two decades. I’ve been a diehard fan. I grew up with Dirk Nisky and Jason Terry and Maris Daniels. That was my guy. I love Maris Daniels. Then I transition into Luca and then that was ripped away from me. And it put me in a weird spot. I’m not going to lie to you. I felt very I didn’t even know how to describe how I felt about the team. And then they win and are gifted Cooper flag. And it’s just this is my guy now. I see this [ __ ] all the time. is like, “How can you guys support the franchise?” Cuz you’re fans of the [ __ ] team. That’s it. Like, what do you mean? You don’t have to explain yourself to anybody. I’m tired of this [ __ ] Nobody has to explain them being a fan to anyone. Nobody supports the Dumonts. No one supports Mariam Add. She’s evil. No one likes her. Let’s just get that out of the way. Nobody is supporting Nico Harrison because you’re supporting the Dallas Mavericks. I guess by extension you are, but then you’re you’re doing that for every single team in the world. That’s how it works. You root for the You root for the team that you grew up rooting for. You root for the team who is located in the city that you grew up in, that your dad rooted for, that your grandpa rooted for. You root for the players on the floor. You grow a personal connection with these players. It’s, you know, it’s parasocial, of course it is. They don’t know who you are, but you you watch them. You watch their careers develop. You watch them go through trials and tribulations with injuries and poor play and whatever the case may be, and you just you grow alongside with them. And because of that, you grow a bond with them. And it’s hard to tear that away. So, you’re always going to root for those guys and support those guys. And fortunately for Mavericks fans, fortunately for me, you have a new guy in Cooper Flag that hopefully you get to watch grow and blossom into an all-time great and you get to be there every single step of the way. That’s what Phantom’s all about. That’s what sports fandom is all about. And that’s why the Luca trade was such a soulcrushing moment in time was because that having a guy like that that you drafted and you watched him grow up. You watched him as this young babyfaced scrawny I mean by Luca standards scrawny kid come into the league and dominate as a as a rookie and then year two he’s growing into an MVP level player and they go to the playoffs for the first time and the team’s just not very good. But he’s doing his best to try and put them in a position to win playoff series. And you watch that blossom into an NBA Finals appearance, getting to the the biggest stage, only the third time in the history of the franchise they had been there and then it’s ripped away. It’s hard not to feel like what the [ __ ] like why am I even watching this sport? And a lot of for a lot of fans that was it. Why am I even watching this sport? For those fans, uh the Mavericks would have to do a lot to regain the trust. And if you ask a lot of them, it’s selling the team. It’s firing Nico Harrison. And that’s just the prerequisites for them to even consider coming back. And that is completely and totally fair. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s sports, man. It’s supposed to be enjoyable, right? This whole thing, it’s about enjoyment. You turn on an NBA game, you get home from work, you’ve had a shitty ass day, you turn on the Mavericks game. It’s supposed to be this release. Is it usually? No. Cuz they’re usually doing some absolute [ __ ] that’s going to piss you off. Spencer Denwood, why are you taking that shot? Now my day is worse. And I hate to single out Spencer Denwood. He led the team in minutes and assists this here. I can’t hate on the guy, but that’s that’s how it is. That’s how sports are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be a sense of community where you have this fan base that you are bonding with, you’re interacting with. And this season tested that in a way I have never seen. I I genuinely have never seen it. And maybe I’m just being ignorant because we’re talking about my team here, but I truthfully have a hard time imagining there’s ever been a season this bad stayed for any team. I cannot imagine if you do the whole 12 month calendar year of going to the NBA finals to what happened. I cannot imagine anything crazier. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Please. I guess I just I want to close this out by saying be a fan however you want to be a fan. Okay? If you still want to support this team, hey, I’ve lived in Dallas my whole life. I’m just going to root for him. Then root for him. Who gives a [ __ ] See, people say you’re a lesser person if you root for him. Who gives a [ __ ] Okay, you say the trade was too far. I can’t do it. I can’t root for a team that Nico Harrison’s in charge of, the Dumonts are in charge of, the Addison’s are in charge of. Then do that. That’s great. That’s fantastic. If you say, “Hey, I’ll check in from time to time. I just can’t support him like I used to. I hopefully does it.” Then do that. Do whatever the hell you want, man. It’s sports. We’re here to have fun. And I hope this video was fun. [Music] It’s never easy when you say goodbye to somebody you love. It’s much easier to say goodbye to somebody you hate. So, with that being said, I’d like to say goodbye to the 2024 2025 Dallas Mavericks. [Music] But on a much more serious note, it’s been a complicated journey for a lot of us and some of us are sad, some of us are happy. I do hope that we soak in everything that’s happened. And we’ve learned a lot of life lessons over the past couple of months. Most important one being, is this even that important or are they that important? To that I answer, of course. Look at what has happened. Look at how together we have bonded as a community. This sense of community you don’t get really anywhere else. A sense of community you don’t feel any other place, especially as the years have gone by and the local sense of community diminishes. You get that community through your sports fandom. And that sports fandom was ripped away from us this year. Goodbye 2425 Dallas Mavericks. While I did have fond memories of you at times, I’m happy that you will be moving on to another place and I know it’ll be fiery and hot there. And to that I say good luck on your journey, on your spiritual journey. for me. I wish I could say I’ll see you on the other side, but I do not think that’ll be the case. Goodbye. [Music]

Buy (pre-order) a Mavs 24-25 Veteran hat now! – https://fullydelusional.shop

From earth-shattering trades, historically bad injury luck, and roster mismanagement to lottery luck and newfound hope, this Dallas Mavericks season might have been the craziest in NBA history. This is a comprehensive timeline of one of the wildest emotional rollercoasters a fanbase has ever experienced. One month, you’re in the NBA Finals — the next, you’ve traded away your franchise superstar Luka Dončić for pennies on the dollar. One minute, you’re on the verge of forfeiting games due to injuries — the next, you win the NBA Draft Lottery and land Cooper Flagg despite having just a 1.8% chance. This is a video detailing the insane year that was for the Dallas Mavericks.

Thumbnail designed by JH Create: @jhcreate on Instagram

Join the Slightly Delusional Club to help support the channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuY9s6ChiawkWEnQZdCS9mQ/join

Business Inquiries – slightlybiasedshow@gmail.com

#NBA #SlightlyBiased

FOLLOW ON TWITTER:
Tweets by BiasedSlightly

FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM:
@theslightlybiasedshow