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FunTranscript
00:00This is the 2024 Dallas Mavericks, a team that accomplished what many teams could only
00:05hope for.
00:06They made it to the NBA Finals.
00:08Now if ever in this position, most organizations will just run it back the next season.
00:12Keep the same core group of players, possibly make a few tweaks here and there.
00:16But when it's proven to work, the last thing you want is big drastic changes.
00:21But not the Dallas Mavericks.
00:23Because out of every big drastic change you could possibly conjure up, they've gone
00:27through every single one of them.
00:28Out of the 14 players on this championship caliber team you see here, only two of them
00:34are currently active on their roster as we speak.
00:38The Mavericks had a winning formula, but decided it wasn't enough.
00:42It is a mess around and find out of biblical proportions, and a trade that initially felt
00:46like the most shocking and inexcusable transaction in NBA history has somehow turned out to be
00:52a whole lot worse.
00:55Uh-oh.
00:56Oh, I don't feel good about that.
00:58Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
01:24Nope.
01:25Nope.
01:26Nope.
01:27Nope.
01:28Nope.
01:5525 minutes.
01:5625 measly little minutes.
01:59This is the total amount of time Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving played on the floor together
02:03this season.
02:04It was a marvelous 25 minutes, and a glimpse at just how good Dallas could be in the post-Luka
02:09era.
02:10What would ensue over the next month is a series of events that would make even the
02:14most rational, level-headed sports fans believe in curses.
02:19Five weeks ago, when the Mavericks traded away Luka Doncic, the general consensus was
02:22that Dallas was trading away their future to win now.
02:26How in a matter of five weeks they've sacrificed both is a tale that will be told for generations.
02:31Since trading away their golden ticket, Dallas has lost Anthony Davis for the rest of the
02:36season to a thigh injury, they lost Daniel Gaffer to an MCL sprain.
02:40In a three-day span, they lost P.J.
02:42Washington and Jaden Hardy to ankle injuries, Dante Exum to a foot injury, and Kyrie Irving
02:48out for the rest of the season after tearing an ACL.
02:5270% of their rotation, gone, and no generational super megastar to carry the load in the meantime.
02:59Under any other circumstance, a wave of injuries like this would be unbelievably bad luck.
03:04And that's really what it is, just sheer bad luck.
03:07But it sure doesn't feel like it.
03:09Now, I'm not a superstitious person.
03:11Everything that happens can be attributed to some rhyme and reason, some cause and effect.
03:15But when you throw your franchise player out of the building and call him a fat, lazy heathen
03:20before slamming the door in his face, bad luck is gonna look a little bit more like
03:24retribution.
03:25And it is so much worse than we could have imagined.
03:28Last season, the Mavericks roster played a total of 18,134 minutes on the court.
03:33That's the combined minutes of every player on their roster throughout the regular season.
03:38As of this week, only 10% of those minutes are on their active roster.
03:4410%.
03:46That means 90% of all minutes from last season are not currently active or playing for the
03:52Dallas Mavericks.
03:53And many of these players will continue to be out for considerable time if not the rest
03:57of the season.
03:58The returning 10% of playing time comes from their backup center, the 8th man, and a man
04:04that's been on a two-way contract for the last two seasons.
04:07If you have a Mavericks fan in your life, check on them.
04:10See how they're doing.
04:11Because what has happened to them and their team is criminal.
04:14The only consolation to the Luka trade was that at least for the near future, the Mavericks
04:20would be in title contention with Kyrie and Davis.
04:23That they would be winning games while the Lakers were prepping Luka to take the torch
04:26from LeBron before he retires.
04:28This couldn't be further from reality.
04:31From the start of the season to the infamous trade, the Lakers and Mavericks were just
04:35a point and a half apart in net rating.
04:37Even without Luka in their lineup for over a month, Dallas was playing better than LA.
04:41But since Luka's first game with the Lakers, LA has the 7th best net rating in the NBA
04:47of plus 6.4.
04:49And the Mavericks have a net rating of negative 8.2, the 3rd worst in the entire league.
04:56The Lakers look like legitimate contenders right now, winning 12 of their last 15 games.
05:01The Mavericks can hardly field a full roster at the moment.
05:04Since Luka's debut in LA, the Lakers are a plus 117 in point differential.
05:11In that same time, the Mavericks are a negative 125.
05:17Not only did Dallas mortgage their future, they inadvertently sacrificed the present.
05:22And to literally add insult to injury, the Mavericks' front office and ownership has
05:26taken zero accountability for the shoddy decisions they've made throughout all of this.
05:31In fact, they've doubled down, insisting Luka was not fit to be the future of their
05:35franchise.
05:36But the real kicker to all of this is that in the one game that we saw how this team
05:41was intended to look, they played great.
05:43Even after Anthony Davis went down, Kyrie Irving stepped up and played some of the best
05:47basketball of his entire career, averaging 31-6 a game and carrying the offensive load
05:53for Dallas.
05:54But to pull this off, the Mavs had to play Kyrie far more than he ever has.
05:57Over the last month and a half, Kyrie played the most minutes per game of any player in
06:02the entire league, not out of desire, but out of necessity.
06:06The Mavs needed him to play as much as possible in the absence of Luka and then AD.
06:10Over that same time span, in the five games Kyrie didn't play and in the one he left
06:14early due to injury, the Mavericks went 1-5 and lost by an average margin of more than
06:1920 points.
06:20It's impossible to know if Kyrie's injury was exacerbated by the excess minutes he was
06:25spending on the court.
06:26But playing an aging 33-year-old injury-prone point guard more minutes than he's ever played
06:31before feels like a catalyst.
06:33Losing AD in his first game with the team felt like the worst-case scenario.
06:38And then Dallas lost half of their roster.
06:40And then they lost the player who was single-handedly keeping them afloat.
06:43Which brings us here.
06:44And with a Dallas Mavericks team that doesn't share an ounce of DNA with the team that made
06:48it to the finals just last season.
06:50Now, you hate to see any player get injured, regardless of the circumstance.
06:54The health of the players takes precedence over everything else that's going on.
06:57But the Mavericks specifically cited Luka's health as a major concern and one of the main
07:01reasons why they didn't see a future with him.
07:04The fact that, directly following these statements, the Mavericks have been hit with one of the
07:08worst injury plagues we've seen in recent history, while Luka is absolutely obliterating
07:14every team he faces on two healthy legs, is a level of irony that is almost too strange
07:20to even believe.
07:21As if the basketball gods are punishing them for the rash and brazen treatment of their
07:26former star.
07:27A curse, when in reality this is the result of trading away your best player, swapping
07:32him for a player who is often injured, working your remaining best player into the ground,
07:36and stumbling into a stretch of bad luck with absolutely no recourse.
07:40Right now, the outcry from Mavericks fans is enough to make anyone want to go and protest
07:44with them.
07:45You know it's bad when Wizards fans are offering you their condolences.
07:49To no fault of their own and against their wishes, in mere months they went from cheering
07:54on Luka and Kyrie in the NBA Finals to watching their team dissipate and be reduced to rubble.
08:01And yet, despite their disappointment for how all of this has unfolded, Maverick fans
08:05are still as steady and passionate as ever, sticking by a franchise that has completely
08:09undermined them and their loyalty.
08:11But just this past week, the Mavericks offered their fans a token of appreciation, a gift
08:16to alleviate the recent betrayal they were put through.
08:19By raising ticket prices 8%.
08:22Truly, a masterclass of basketball mismanagement spearheaded by the worst trade in modern sports
08:28history.