The Dallas Mavericks have spent most of the year 2025 as a running punchline in the NBA. That's what you get when you trade a generational young superstar for an older, oft-injured big man.
The architect of said trade, general manager Nico Harrison, is expected to be fired Tuesday, according to ESPN's Shams Charania. Over the weekend, longtime NBA insider Marc Stein reported that "the rising and virtually ceaseless negativity that surrounds the franchise is indeed wearing on and troubling ownership."
The Mavericks fell to 3-8 on the season after blowing a 13-point fourth-quarter lead against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday night. Anthony Davis missed his sixth straight game with a calf strain after multiple scouts and coaches told Christian Clark of The Athletic that Davis "didn't look as mobile as he normally does" during the first four games of the year.
The Mavericks feel like a bottomless pit of despair, especially since they already traded away control of their first-round picks from 2027 through 2030. While there's no sugarcoating their rocky start to the 2025-26 season, things aren't quite as bleak as they might currently seem in Dallas, especially following the dismissal of Harrison.
Cooper Flagg and the path forward for Dallas
The lone silver lining of the Luka Dončić trade is that the Mavericks wound up missing the playoffs last year. Although they entered the draft lottery with only a 1.8 percent chance to win the No. 1 overall pick, the ping-pong balls bounced in their favor and gifted them the rights to Duke forward Cooper Flagg.
Flagg didn't quite hit the ground running in Dallas, as head coach Jason Kidd tried to shoehorn him in as the Mavericks' starting point guard in Kyrie Irving's absence. That experiment has produced mixed results, although Flagg had one of the best games of his young career against Giannis and the Bucks on Monday. He finished with a career-high 26 points on 9-of-15 shooting, nine rebounds, four assists, two steals and one block in 35 minutes.
Flagg is clearly the future in Dallas, but the Mavericks traded the 26-year-old Dončić for the 32-year-old Davis to maximize their win-now window. They're now in somewhat of a Two Timelines situation with the older Irving, Davis and Klay Thompson on one end of the aging spectrum and Flagg, Dereck Lively II and Max Christie on the other.
At some point, the Mavericks will inevitably pivot and begin fully building around Flagg. In the wake of their dismal start to the season, calls for them to trade Davis are already starting to mount. However, they might not be keen on admitting defeat on their main return for Dončić this quickly unless they get a blockbuster package in return.
Mavs won't need to rush turning the page to the Cooper Flagg era
There's little harm in standing pat for the time being. The Mavericks have full control over their own 2026 first-round pick, so if they can't get their season back on track, that might be their fastest way to find Flagg a co-star who's on the same developmental timeline. The one team lower than them in the Western Conference standings, the New Orleans Pelicans, don't have their 2026 first-round pick, so they have zero incentive to tank this year.
It could behoove the Mavericks to see how the 2026 draft order unfolds before they embark upon any seismic shakeups. Any trade involving a 2026 draft pick in the near future would be high on mystery-box potential but low on certainty. Besides, next offseason is a far more logical pivot point for the Mavericks than an in-season fire sale.
Davis and Irving are both only under guaranteed contract through next season before they have player options of $62.8 million (!) and $42.4 million in 2027-28, respectively. Caleb Martin ($9.4 million) and Christie ($8.9 million) have player options in 2027-28 as well, while Thompson and Naji Marshall are both set to come off the Mavericks' books in 2027.
The Mavs aren't likely to have a fully blank slate in 2027, but that's the first time they could have financial flexibility in the Flagg era. And if Davis and Irving each pick up their options, they'll both come off the Mavericks' books one year before Flagg's rookie-scale deal ends.
In the meantime, the Mavericks likely want to see what their core of Flagg, Davis and Irving look like together before they make any drastic decisions. It sounds as though Irving could be back from his torn ACL as early as January, and Charania reported in April that there was "an expectation around the team that Irving will be able to play a good amount of the 2025-26 season upon his return."
This year's trade deadline is Feb. 5, which means the Mavericks may have only a few weeks to evaluate the Flagg-Irving-Davis triumvirate before trades start flying across the league. Unlike last year, when they blew the NBA away with their decision to trade Dončić, patience may be the prudent path this time around.
Next offseason, the Mavs may have a better sense of whether Irving and/or Davis plan to pick up their respective 2027-28 player options, and what they might command on the free-agent market if not. Thompson will also be on a $17.5 million expiring contract, which could be valuable for teams looking for longer-term cap relief. As long as Davis and Irving are healthy, the Mavericks won't necessarily be dealing from a position of weakness if they wait to make a big move until next offseason.
Once they begin stripping their roster for spare parts, they should be able to recoup a fair bit of draft value. Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington are both signed to reasonable, long-term contracts, while Davis and Irving should have at least a handful of suitors as well. The Mavericks aren't likely to land a Dončić-esque star in return for any of them, but they should be able to net at least a handful of first-round picks if they traded all of them.
The Mavericks' long-term vision is murky for now, since they're currently juggling two timelines and just fired an embattled GM whom most of the fanbase would like to send to the Hague. But whenever they do decide to pivot and start fully building around Flagg, they have a number of flippable veterans who should help expedite their rebuild by fetching a decent return.