When you crash your car into a ditch, you have a number of things to deal with. First and foremost, is everyone okay? Yes? Okay, now we have to call the police and exchange insurance information with the car that hit us into said ditch. We then need to talk to the paramedics and get cleared to continue, figure out if the car is still drivable, and if not, get all the stuff out and ride the tow truck to where someone else can pick us up. Then you have to call insurance, figure out the cost of repairing the car, if it’s worth it, if you’re just better off with a used Honda Civic for now, or if this is the perfect moment to upgrade to the brand-new family SUV.
You following? Good, because that’s the summary of the Dallas Mavericks rebuild post-Luka Dončić trade. It was a horrific car accident, so bad there’s a fairly extensive Wikipedia article about it. The bills are piling up, and getting back to stable ground is going to take a lot of phone calls and emails to an unresponsive insurance secretary named William. But looking around and surveying the damage? I think the Mavericks are somewhat ahead of schedule.
The Dallas Mavericks have course-corrected in a big way
First, I know what it says in the headline, but I’m not allowing this to be called a “rebuild,” at least in the traditional sense of the word. Rebuilds are what you do when your team has run its course, you have no avenue to winning and blowing things up to get younger is the only way forward. That was not the Mavericks’ plight; they traded Dončić in a way-too-aggressive attempt to win the 2025 NBA Finals around a team that Nico Harrison believed had a better chance of doing so. He was wrong, he got fired, and now other people are “rebuilding” what was essentially an already-built Lego set that someone decided to Gronk-spike and shatter for no good reason.
Let’s go ahead and call this a hazardous waste cleanup operation, the first step of which is always to fire everyone who was remotely involved in the disaster. Save for the owners, the Mavericks have done just that. Nico Harrison is gone, replaced by Masai Ujiri, a splashy name who should (at the very least) stabilize the situation, though he also might enjoy a touch less latitude with earth-shattering decisions than his predecessor. Jason Kidd, who I refuse to believe did not know about the Luka trade, has also been sent packing. Dusty May, the ultra-successful coach of the Michigan basketball team, is in to replace him.
The Mavs were terrible last year, but are at least interesting this time
Next, we need a new cornerstone. And in this particular car accident, the insurance policy came through big time; the Mavericks were gifted Cooper Flagg in a hysterical turn of events, jumping way up in the lottery to grab someone who looks like a near-lock to be an All-NBA player. Sometimes it’s easier done than said. Some other player moves set a nice tone for the future, particularly drafting May’s guy Morez Johnson from Michigan and trading for some first-round draft picks. Kyrie Irving should play a role at some point, if not on the court then as a trade asset. And, if you want to be glass half-full even though the glass is, in fact, only about one-fifth full … they also acquired former number one overall pick Zaccharie Risacher. There is technically also that.
All of this is competent, rational basketball decision-making, curious for the ownership group that greenlit the least rational, least competent decision in the history of basketball. But credit where credit is due: the Mavs have stabilized and have an intriguing team for the 2026 campaign. Good for them, because man oh man did they need it.
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