The 2024-2025 NBA season was supposed to be our year.
The Dallas Mavericks (Mavs) made the finals the previous season, just falling short to the Boston Celtics. It was alright though, because we weren’t supposed to be there. No one expected the team to go on in the playoffs, defeating three 50-plus win teams on its way to the finals. The city, fans and the entire NBA was put on notice — Dallas was here to stay, and they were not to be taken lightly.
Led by young superstar Luka Doncic, who was coming off the best season of his career, with Kyrie Irving beside him as an experienced veteran, an all-star guard and leader, it was hard to imagine how the team wouldn’t be able to repeat their success in the coming years. There were certainly still improvements to be made in the offseason leading into the 2024-2025 season, and the front office attacked and handled it as such.
They signed four-time champion and one of the greatest three-point shooters of all-time, Klay Thompson, and added solid bench rotation players and perimeter defenders, trading for Quentin Grimes and signing Naji Marshall. It was crazy that a team that made the finals could improve so drastically, but the Mavs did.
With more depth and experience added to the roster, I went into the season with more excitement and anticipation than I ever had before. It was a slow and strenuous start to the season, but there were clear flashes of greatness as the team came to grips with itself and players adapted to new roles. Doncic started the season slowly, shooting inefficiently by his standards, but still managed to put up 20-plus points per game. Even with their early struggles and small injury issues to start off the year, come December, the Mavs were still 19-10 on the year. However, everything changed on an eventful Christmas Day matchup against the Minnesota Timberwolves in which Doncic left the game with a calf injury.
This marked the beginning of the end for the Dallas Mavericks.
Drama behind closed doors between the front office, mainly with general manager Nico Harrison and Doncic led to the biggest mistake in NBA history. It was without a doubt the worst decision a franchise has ever made, trading away a 25-year-old superstar who just led the team to the finals in the midst of a slump. Not only that, but trading him for horrible value, as they only managed to get Anthony Davis, Max Christie and one first-round pick in return. Davis is an amazing player and all, but the rest of the deal is nowhere near worth what Doncic is. I am still grieving the loss of my favorite player and the city is still in uproar over the trade. “Fire Nico” chants raged on at American Airlines Center for the rest of the season, and a curse fell upon the team.
At the time of the trade, the Mavericks were 26-23, which is not a horrible record, and were still in the hunt for playoff contention, but fans having to wait a month for Davis to even make his debut as a Maverick was a clear curse on the team. In his debut, Davis got injured, which was the start of a series of unfortunate events that I still can’t wrap my head around.
Over the coming weeks and months, the team suffered numerous injuries, most significantly Irving tearing his ACL. Irving’s injury was the worst case scenario for the Mavs because he would not only be out for the remainder of the season but will be out for a majority of next season as well. The team lost all three rotational big men in Davis, Derek Lively and Daniel Gafford and also lost the majority of their remaining starters. There were games where head coach Jason Kidd had only seven players available to play — a situation that the league has never seen.
The inexplicable and insane fall of the Mavs came to a poetic and abysmal end as the team failed to reach the playoffs, losing to the Memphis Grizzlies in the Play-In Tournament. However, the Mavs failing to make the playoffs meant they secured odds in the draft lottery. The nightmare season that will forever haunt the city of Dallas is over and now it’s time to see where the team can go from here.
The loss in the Play-In meant that the Mavs secured the 11th best odds in the draft, with a 1.8% chance of landing the first overall pick and an 8.5% chance of jumping into the top four. With the odds stacked against the team and the future of the franchise hanging in the balance, the Mavs needed a miracle to turn their hopes around. And that’s exactly what they received.
The team miraculously jumped up through the draft lottery, and with each pick’s announcement, my anxiety, anticipation and excitement built. It was time for the final pick to be announced, and it was down to the San Antonio Spurs and the Mavs. As they announced the first overall pick, I dropped to my knees; ironically similar to what happened when I heard the Doncic trade news. With one miraculous moment, the hopes of a franchise and city were restored. The curse had broken and all of the hardship and unfortunate events of the season culminated into a singular moment that will change the course of this franchise.
The bonafide No. 1 overall prospect is Cooper Flagg, who fits the team perfectly. He was one of the most dominant players in all of college basketball as a freshman at Duke University, and won nearly every major award. He is a three-level scorer with great instincts on offense and a defensive portfolio to back that up, being lengthy and physical on the ball. He is exactly the kind of player who fits the team and the culture of “Defense wins championships” that Harrison loves. He is the savior and future cornerstone the franchise needed.
With Flagg all but guaranteed to be en route to Dallas, a new age is upon us. The Dallas Mavericks were one more bad move or a piece of bad luck away from collapse, yet just as hope seemed lost, Flagg emerges as a shining star that could lead the franchise back to the promised land. My hopes as a Dallas Mavericks fan are restored, and it is now time to close the chapter of Doncic and the nightmare that was the 2024-2025 NBA season, and usher in the new age of Cooper Flagg.
We’re so back.
