The Mavs Are Reportedly ‘Seriously Considering’ Shutting Down Luka And Kyrie

Things aren’t going well for the Dallas Mavericks right now. After trading their best wing defender and draft assets for Kyrie Irving, they have fallen not only out of the playoff race in the West, but are currently a full-game back of the Thunder for the 10th and final play-in position with three games to play.

The lowlights are numerous, but are headlined by losing two consecutive games to the tanking Hornets and, most recently, losing to a Hawks team that actively tried to give them the game late with two horrendous fouls, only for the Mavs to go 2-of-4 from the line, where three makes would’ve won them the game in regulation and then promptly lose in overtime. As such, there’s plenty of consternation in Dallas about the short- and long-term future of the franchise, but apparently also some discussion internally about whether it’s time to shut it all down.

“You have to see what happens in Utah, what happens in Oklahoma City between now and Wednesday. The Mavs don’t play again until Wednesday at home against the Kings. I’m told that the organization is seriously considering shutting down those three guys. They have a top-10 protected pick, so being out of the play-in race it behooves them not to try and keep their pick and at that point you have the flexibility of having that potentially top-10 pick. You have three first round picks to trade this offseason to get a star and potentially more players in the marketplace.”

I have to say I find this highly unlikely, given an OKC loss to the Warriors on Tuesday night would put them just a half-game back, which, even factoring in the tiebreaker belonging to OKC, is doable. After making that trade, you can’t punt until you’re completely out of it, particularly considering the schedule should be gettable with three home games against the Kings (who might be locked into the 3-seed), Bulls, and Spurs to end the season. The Thunder go to Golden State, then Utah, and finish with Memphis at home (who should be locked into the 2-seed), but 1-2 is not out of the question with that schedule.

That said, a gettable schedule hasn’t helped the Mavs to this point, so you can’t really bank on that suddenly starting now. To even be in this position is wild given where they were a year ago, and even those who felt regression was coming for the Mavs didn’t foresee them missing the play-in outright and having conversations about shutting stars down with a week to do. Again, I’d doubt we see that kind of activity on Wednesday, but Luka playing out the season certainly isn’t a guarantee, particularly if they slip up against the Kings and/or OKC picks up a win in San Francisco on Tuesday.