The Mavericks need to develop a championship edge

Sometimes being good isn’t good enough.

The expectations have never been higher for Dallas than they were coming into this season. You cannot get any closer to contending than having a top-five player and a roster that made the NBA Finals just months prior. Last season, the Mavericks started the year 9-3. The last time Dallas won less than six games in their first 12 was Luka Doncic’s rookie year, where they started 4-8. Dallas is now 5-7, securely outside of the playoff picture. This comes on the heels of a four-game losing streak, with each loss even more excruciating than the last. The bow on this gift of torture was Doncic getting lost due to a miscommunication, leaving John Collins wide open for the game-winning dunk in their most recent defeat in Utah:

The first three losses in this skid came at the hands of very good teams and/or all-time great players. The Suns, Nuggets, and Warriors have a combined record of 25-8, and their best players have all won MVPs. Losing to those teams by six total points was frustrating, but one shot here and one shot there would have smoothed over the rocky feelings. Losing to the Jazz, however, who are now 3-8, is shameful and flat-out embarrassing. There are losses to bad teams that require no deeper analysis; sometimes you cannot hit a shot, the ball doesn’t bounce your way, and you take it in stride and move on. But not all losses are created equal, and the way Dallas lost in Utah with the entire NBA world watching was pitiful and a sign of a team not ready to win a championship.

The effort was once again not present. They gave up 38 points in the third quarter to a Jazz team that averages just under 107 a game, the third-lowest total in the league. Dereck Lively must have gotten his powers sucked out of him when he injured his shoulder because he has forgotten how to guard players in space and use his hands to catch the ball. Non-Luka Mavericks turned the ball over 14 times, which is unfathomable given the makeup of the team. Dallas managed to lose a game in which Doncic had 37 points, nine assists, and just three turnovers. That should never happen. Unfortunately, as pretty as his stat line was, the reason it happened was because Doncic himself continues to have lapses in judgment on both ends and has failed to set the tone early and often in almost every game.

The Mavericks’ roster is really good. I like all of the players they have put together. But the way they have come out of the gates this year leads me to believe that they lack the secret sauce championship teams have. The Celtics do not have these disaster stretches. The Nuggets rotation is as thin as can be and they have conjured up seven wins. The Warriors, the most notorious winners of the last decade, have made something out of nothing with their weird, ragtag group. That’s what those kinds of teams do. As elementary as it may sound, winners win. The Mavericks returned four starters from an NBA Finals appearance last season and added key upgrades that filled the holes they had. Yet somehow their bad habits have consumed them and the hunger they played with after last season’s trade deadline has not been present.

The reality is this: Dallas needs to use this loss as a wake-up call. They just aren’t good enough right now. The whole team must look in the mirror and it starts at the top with Luka Doncic. He just has to improve, and the rest of the team will follow. At least they know now that they aren’t who they thought they were and can build towards becoming them for the rest of the season. The Mavericks’ issues no longer end on the basketball court, they’re deep-seated in the culture and mindset of the team. Until the ground they stand on is stable, they won’t get where they want to go.

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