It has been another disastrous year for the Dallas Mavericks after a league-worst 2-10 start to the 2017-18 NBA season. The first few weeks have already been reminiscent of last year's struggles early on.
While it was not discussed at the time, Dallas seemingly tanked the rest of the season in order to get a chance at a potential lottery pick. Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has since come clean about the accusations, however, admitted to only tanking once the team was out of contention for the 2017 NBA playoffs, according to Brad Townsend of SportsDay:
“But not until we were eliminated,” Cuban reminded Tuesday night before his Mavericks, then 1-10, faced the Wizards in Washington D.C. “And until we're eliminated, we ain't tanking here, either.
The charismatic Cuban added that he is still confident this year's team can get back on the right track.
“I still think we can turn this around,” he said. “We've been in 1-9 stretches during various parts of various seasons in the past, so it's not like we haven't been here before. It's just that you never want to start the season like that.”
With the NBA's new lottery reform to prevent tanking, attempting to make do with what they got is just about the only option Dallas has at this point. Fortunately, Cuban and the Mavericks took advantage of this year's position in the NBA Draft by taking star rookie Dennis Smith Jr. with the ninth overall pick.
Smith Jr. has been one of the very few bright spots through the first 10 games of the 2017-18 NBA season, averaging 14.2 points and 4.9 assists, per game. It seems once again the prospect of sacrificing a few wins for a potential lottery pick is all too appealing for some lower-tier teams.
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