:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73413942/mavsobit_getty_ringer.0.jpg "The Dallas Mavericks risked everything — and it almost worked")
Luka Doncic, soaked in sweat and frustration, hair tangled, face red, neck wrapped in a towel, sat down for his final postgame interview of the 2023-24 season about an hour before midnight on Monday. At the back of the room, a blizzard of green and white confetti filled a giant TV screen. The Celtics’ championship celebration had just begun when the Dallas Mavericks star asked his first question.
That's the thing about arriving on the court or podium early: it can get uncomfortable pretty quickly.
“Nothing,” Doncic said when asked what he was feeling, his voice so low and monotone that the microphone barely recorded it. “It’s sad that we lost. Nothing special.”
An exciting and completely surprising run to the NBA Finals ended with a completely lopsided 106-88 loss in Game 5 and a 4-1 series deficit. Doncic had been dominant at times, but not often enough. Kyrie Irving had been spectacular at times, just not in any of the games Boston lost (all of them). The Celtics were simply deeper, more talented, more experienced — and ultimately too overwhelming for a young, recently assembled Mavericks team that at one point wasn't even a sure bet to make the playoffs.
“They're a great team,” Doncic said while TV showed commissioner Adam Silver presenting the trophy to the Celtics. “They've been together a long time, and they've been through everything. So we just have to watch them, see how they play, the maturity, and they have some great players. We can learn from that.”
Monday's finale was much like the Mavericks' other losses in the series. Doncic scored 28 points, but he had to work hard for them all, and his great playmaking was thwarted (five assists). Irving scored 15 points on 16 shots while once again drawing boos and derisive chants in the arena he once called home. And no one in a Mavericks uniform could do much to stop Jayson Tatum (31 points, 11 assists) or Finals MVP Jaylen Brown (21 points).
The Mavericks entered the Finals with pundits declaring Doncic and Irving to be the greatest backcourt of all time. The Celtics made a mockery of those claims with their sheer length and versatility.
For the 25-year-old Doncic, it was a colossal failure on the NBA's biggest stage, capping a series that tested his defense and his composure intensely. His brief answers and low voice said it all. For the 32-year-old Irving, who has won (once) and lost (three times) on this stage before, it was another moment of learning and reflection.
He said, “Success might be new to a lot of people, but when you fail in the finals, it's not something you want to carry around with disappointment forever or until the next season. We worked really hard to be one of the last two teams. We didn't achieve our goal, but we achieved most of what we wanted. So, this is just the last step we have to get back on, and we know it's not going to be easy.”
Irving had to provide perspective: that the Mavericks were a fifth-seeded team, a team that beat three higher-seeded teams to get here, a team that added two new starters just four months ago, a team loaded with youth and potential. They lost to a Celtics team that had already gone through these evolutionary stages, that had already lost a championship two years ago, that had suffered its pain, learned its lessons, made its adjustments.
So despite the loss, Irving advocated reasonable optimism: “I see an opportunity for us to really build our future in a positive way,” he said, “where it’s almost like a regular thing for us, and we’re competing for championships.”
In fact, this performance by the Mavericks feels more like a beginning than an end, a testament to steady team building and risk-taking that has yet to yield results.
The thing is, the Mavericks never expected they'd be here. Or at least, the Mavericks guy who signs all the checks never expected his team to be here. Not so fast.
“No,” explained the franchise's longtime owner (now minority partner) Mark Cuban. The Ringer Early in the series it was said, “I didn't.”
Sure, the Mavs had finished the season strongly after making deadline deals for Daniel Gafford and PJ Washington. They had become one of the better defensive teams in the league after being one of the worst teams for several months. They had a great backcourt that they believed could eventually make it to the Finals. But overall the Mavericks were too young, too unproven, to be expected to make a run this season, especially given the strength of the Western Conference.
The Los Angeles Clippers had more experience. The top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder had more talent. The Minnesota Timberwolves had more size and consistency. The fifth-seeded Mavericks beat them all, in that order, without home court advantage in any series.
But Cuban didn’t even think a Finals appearance was possible until, oh, 19 days before the Finals began. “When we beat Oklahoma City,” he said, referring to the Mavs’ second-round win over the Thunder, which they secured with a one-point victory in Game 6 on May 18.
“They were the No. 1 team in the Western Conference,” he said. “They had Chet [Holmgren]So the five of them could go out. They had Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander]who is second in MVP [voting].They didn’t really have any weaknesses. They’re a great defensive team, very athletic. And so everybody had to contribute.”
With each round, the Mavericks gained credibility and confidence. Young players like Derek Lively II didn't seem so young anymore. Players with little (or no) playoff experience didn't seem so inexperienced anymore. They all looked polished, prepared, like they belonged here.
And for the Mavericks' leadership, it seemed like the exciting payoff of three big bets made in a 20-month period that reshaped their direction and identity. All three were objectively risky — “one hundred percent,” Cuban agreed. If any of them backfired, the Mavs wouldn't have gotten this far.
In June 2021, Cuban simultaneously hired Nico Harrison as general manager and Jason Kidd as head coach. Harrison, a longtime Nike executive, had no experience running an NBA team. Kidd had ample experience, but his tenures in Milwaukee and Brooklyn were both disastrous. It's possible no other team would have considered them both.
Then came the biggest change. On Feb. 6, 2023, Harrison brokered a deal for Irving, who was angry with the Brooklyn Nets and seeking a divorce. At the time, Irving was considered radioactive, a chaos agent who had repeatedly derailed the Nets with off-court distractions, including the promotion of an anti-Semitic film and an anti-vaccine stance that made him ineligible for home games during the peak of the COVID pandemic.
“I wouldn't trade my 15th man for anything [Irving]“That guy is just toxic,” one team executive told me in November 2022.
But the Mavericks saw an opportunity — and pounced. They sent two starters, Dorian Finney-Smith and Spencer Dinwiddie, plus draft picks, to the Nets for Irving, because they thought he could be the costar Doncic needed. Rival teams and pundits scoffed at it. Yeah, good luck with that.
A few other teams also made serious bids for Irving, as they believed the risk outweighed any potential gain. But then again, no other team was eager to hire Kidd as a head coach, no other team was eager to hire Harrison as a potential GM.
“Sure, sure, they were risks,” Cuban said of Harrison, Kidd and Irving. “I mean, there were a lot of people who rolled their eyes at me. But each of them brought a unique set of skills to the table that I didn't have, that the organization didn't have, and I felt they were valuable and important.”
What was so special about all those moves? “I'm cockily self-confident,” Cuban said with a laugh. “I knew them. I didn't know Nico, but everybody said amazing things about him. And I knew what Nico was good at, what I wasn't good at, and vice versa. Nico had relationships. He worked his way up the corporate ladder. He knew how to manage people. He knew how to deal with processes. He understood basketball and knew basketball players. But what he didn't know in terms of running a team, I knew.”
The Cubans knew Kidd, from Kidd’s days playing for the Dirk Nowitzki-era Mavericks, heading into the 2011 championship. And Kidd and Harrison knew Irving.
“Of course there was a risk,” Harrison said. The Ringer First in the Finals. “There's no doubt about it. But I knew Kyrie, I knew how talented he is. And I believe you take a guy like Kyrie, who I know is a hard-working guy. I know his character. You put him in a good environment, he's going to thrive. So yes, there was a risk, but I believed in Kyrie's core.”
When Harrison took over in 2021, he believed Doncic was ready to compete immediately. That meant he needed a capable costar right away. Irving wasn’t necessarily the only option, or the safest by any means, but he was the first option the Mavericks could find.
“The risk for me was not to do it,” Harrison said.
The midseason trade for Gafford and Washington this year was low risk but also low guarantee of success. Many rivals and media outlets (including this one) criticized the deal. The Mavericks were acquitted on all counts.
“There's a lot of luck involved,” Cuban said. “If you're relying on luck, you have to be very, very, very patient. And we knew we had a generational talent in Luca, and I didn't see any way we could just be patient.”
Cuban has a long history of making risky bets and living with the consequences. He had barely taken control of the Mavericks in 2000 when he signed Dennis Rodman, who by then had become more of a circus performer than an athlete. He let him go a month after Dallas went 3-9. In 2004, Cuban let Steve Nash leave as a free agent because of health concerns. Nash moved to Phoenix and became a two-time MVP. In 2011, Cuban opted to break up his title team because of concerns about age and a new labor deal. But the risk-taking goes back even further, to a failed powdered-milk venture in the early '80s, Cuban's first business endeavor after college.
“It doesn't matter how many times you get it wrong. You only have to get it right once. Then everyone will tell you how lucky you are,” Cuban once said on a podcast.
And yes, there was some strange luck involved here, too. As it turned out, Irving and Doncic, both ball-dominant stars, didn’t mesh quickly. Dallas was 8-18 after the trade last year, and 5-11 when the two played. All of these losses dropped the Mavericks down in the standings. And instead of pushing for a play-in bid, they gave up completely, losing the last game of the season, which allowed them to keep their draft pick, which in turn allowed them to draft Lively, who became one of their most important players this season.
The last night of the Finals is always painful for the losing team. It's impossible to avoid the confetti or hear the raucous party going on in the hall, sometimes even as they're still giving interviews about how it all went wrong. After Dončić left the podium, two staffers quickly turned off the TV with a feed of the Celtics' celebration.
But the Mavericks returned from TD Garden with a sense of earned optimism. Doncic is already a perennial MVP candidate with plenty of room to grow. Irving has found the calm and perspective in Dallas that he seemed to lack in previous stops. Lively is just 20, and has a lot of potential. Washington and Gafford are just 25. Team executives have high hopes for Jaden Hardy (21), Josh Green (23) and Olivier-Maxence Prosper (21). Their only significant free agent this summer is Derrick Jones Jr.
But the Mavericks understand the landscape. The Western Conference isn't getting any easier. The Timberwolves and Thunder are young and improving, and the Nuggets will surely recover from their failed title defense. Another run to the Finals might require another developmental leap from Doncic, or the rapid development of all those recent draft picks — or perhaps another swing-for-the-fences gambit in the trade market.
“The pressure will be on us now because the expectations will be lower,” Cuban said. whole A lot. They're going to come at us. And that's not a bad thing. It's going to make us better.”