11-20-2025, 07:46 AM
(11-20-2025, 06:14 AM)Dahlsim Wrote: Not sure how effectively Dallas can tank a season really at this point with the level of veteran talent and depth on the team. They have players that will really make it hard to tank in the stretch run of a season when the tank commanders really get after it.
Yes star players can mess up losses and turn them into wins. But it can be way EASIER to tank than you are envisioning, even if you have star players.
The best Mav players will just need to have "injuries" that keep them from playing very much this season.
If your top players don't want to be "injured" so you can tank, then yep, a trade will be necessary.
However that's not a good answer at all, because a trade in that scenario will be a giveaway. You CAN'T get back equal talent, because that defeats the purpose of a bad team this season. And in the bigger picture, you can't get good again later without somehow reacquiring the star-level talent to be your foundation. So you end up killing your future with such giveaway trades.
OTOH injuries to the top guys is about all you need to kill the record. You are only temporarily bad. In the short term, you can not only keep your best players from having an impact, but with the minutes that open up from "injuries," the coach then can overplay sucky players, and use players in disadvantageous ways, to make winning unlikely. The Mavs are on a 20-win pace, so it's not like a sucky record should be all that much of a challenge to achieve.
The question is whether the Mavs are smart enough to know what to do, and committed enough to make it happen. I don't trust Cuban's ability AT ALL, but fortunately he has no actual decision-making power. Whether Dumont has (or will get) the GM expertise to help him figure it out and do it the right way, it's hard to know.