There are some NBA teams that think the best way to go about a season that won’t end with a playoff appearance is to tank. Despite public comments by Mavericks owner Mark Cuban that seemingly endorsed the practice, Dirk Nowitzki does not want Dallas to be a team that actively pursues having the worst record in the league.
The Mavs took down the Knicks in New York on Tuesday night, 110-97. With the win, the team moved to 22-46 on the year, 3.5 games back of the worst record in the league. It was also a win over a New York squad that, without Kristaps Porzingis, has lost nine of its last 10 games.
Nowitzki is a proud veteran, so he was happy that the team picked up a win. That is especially because he claims that he sees “pretty obvious” tanking league-wide, and doesn’t want to have the Mavericks stop “playing hard” in an attempt to lose games.
Via SportsDay:
“We keep playing hard,” he said. “There obviously are some teams that are going for some losses now. We’re one of the teams that still wants to win and see where we end up in the draft.
“We want to have a winning culture for our young guys and show them how to play and the work ethic and how to play to win. So that’s very important to us.”
Asked if he could tell which teams are diving for lottery position, he said: “Yeah, it’s pretty obvious.”
With how the league is fighting back against tanking before new draft lottery rules go in effect next year, no one is obviously going to say “we should lose as frequently as possible to increase our chances of taking Luka Doncic or Deandre Ayton.” Even if that was the case, Nowitzki made it clear that he really takes pride in making sure the Mavericks are competing every night, so it’s hard to see Dallas punting on games any time over the remainder of the season.
