There has never been a better time to mismanage a Western Conference winner. The Minnesota Timberwolves willingly gave away Karl-Anthony Towns after reaching the Western Conference finals a year ago. Their postseason position, for the time being, is relatively safe. The Sacramento Kings fired a unanimous Coach of the Year in Mike Brown and were then forced to give away De’Aaron Fox for poor value before they would have inevitably lost him in 2026 free agency. Once again, the Kings are probably secure in reaching at least the Play-In stage. Both teams have managed to avoid the bulk of the public scrutiny their mistakes would typically warrant simply because of how bad things have gotten somewhere else.
The Luka Dončić trade was such an immediate disaster, and has somehow gotten so much worse in the month that has followed, that those other teams are more or less off of the hook for their own debacles. The long-term implications of the Dončić trade will be felt for years to come, but the short-term impact is part of what is protecting the Kings and Timberwolves right now. The Mavericks have harmed themselves so irreparably that it would be nearly impossible for either Sacramento or Minnesota to miss the Play-In tournament.
Kyrie Irving tore his ACL on Monday. That leaves Dallas with an astonishing $129 million in currently injured salary. Irving, Anthony Davis, Daniel Gafford, Dereck Lively, Caleb Martin, P.J. Washington and Jaden Hardy are all hurt right now. Even with a 3 ½-game lead and less than a quarter of the season remaining, the Mavericks are no longer a secure, top-10 team in the West. The trouble here is that there isn’t exactly a logical replacement.
The Phoenix Suns should be doing backflips right now. Dallas has not only provided meaningful cover for their own mismanagement this season, but has opened the door back up for the Suns to sneak into the Play-In stage. That problem is that Phoenix can’t get out of its own way either. The Suns are 3-11 since the beginning of February. They somehow managed to trade their unprotected 2031 first-round pick at the deadline without making a meaningful improvement to this season’s roster. Oh, and they have the hardest remaining schedule in the NBA. They are obviously talented enough to turn this around, but we have two years of evidence suggesting they won’t.
If anything, a few of their former players might be in a better position to do so. When the Suns sent Deandre Ayton and Toumani Camara to the Portland Trail Blazers two summers ago, they surely didn’t imagine getting surpassed by the players they were giving away so quickly. Yet Portland sits only half a game behind the Suns and four behind the Mavericks. They are 17-13 in the calendar year 2025. They are reasonably healthy, unlike the Mavericks, and they are not dealing with abject misery that seems to permeate out of the Suns locker room. Given a longer available runway, the Blazers might be the obvious pick to grab the No. 10 seed in the West.
The problem is that Portland has only 18 remaining games and trails Dallas by four in the loss column. That would be surmountable if they didn’t have the third-hardest remaining schedule in the NBA. Portland still has five of its six games against the top three seeds in the Eastern Conference left on its slate as well as three more against the top three seeds in the West.
Okay… so… maybe the Spurs? Well, considering they trail the Mavericks by seven wins right now, that doesn’t seem terribly plausible either. If Victor Wembanyama were healthy, this would be another matter entirely. But the Spurs are 10.3 points per 100 possessions worse without Wembanyama on the floor this season. As fun as it would be to see Fox rally the young Spurs into the playoffs without their leader, the math just isn’t in their favor.
Which is almost a shame from the Dallas perspective, because at this point, it probably doesn’t even make sense for the Mavericks to make the postseason. Dallas currently owes out its first-round picks in 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030. This June and then 2026 are going to be their last two chances to add young talent with control over their own picks for the rest of the decade. Sneaking into a decent lottery slot could go a long way towards revamping this roster without Dončić. Someone has to finish No. 10, and unless the Suns or Blazers can overcome brutal schedules, it’s probably going to be Dallas. And when the Mavericks inevitably lose their first Play-In game to the Kings or Timberwolves, they’ll provide even more cover for the poor decisions those teams have already made.
