Can the Dallas Mavericks Threaten OKC Thunder, Top of West?

What a rollercoaster the 2024-25 season was for the Dallas Mavericks. After being the league's runner-up in 2024, losing to the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals, the Mavericks' season was on shaky ground from the word go.

It was an injury-riddled campaign that crescendoed with the most head-scratching trade in NBA history that sent Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis.

That left plenty of questions for top-decision maker Nico Harrison to have to field; the answers that he cowardly hid behind didn't hold much water. It is fair to wonder if a bird had the brain of one Nico Harrison, would it fly backwards?

Harrison opined about the fact that defense wins championships –– which Oklahoma City validated by boasting a historic defensive unit en route to the 2025 NBA championship –– and continued to bash Doncic's body and work ethic, ignoring the heights that the new face of Men's Health has already reached in his NBA career and for the Mavericks franchise.

After a billion PR missteps and injuries piled up on Davis, Kyrie Irving and the team's illustrious center rotation, the Mavericks entered the 2025 NBA Draft lottery as the laughing stock of the league.

Though, they left the night with the biggest get out of jail free card in NBA history.

The Dallas Mavericks landed the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, nabbing a can't-miss, surefire talent. Cooper Flagg has been compared to the likes of LeBron James as a prospect and enters the league with a ton of hype and fan support after watching him not only dominate with the Duke Blue Devils but also on Team USA select last summer.

This draft pick was a shot in the arm that the Mavericks franchise needed in the midst of a fanbase threatening to give up on the sport, much less its beloved Mavs. While tensions remain high, for as alarmingly idiotic a move as Harrison made, Dallas came out the other side of a Doncic trade as best you possibly could hope for.

With the end of July representing not only the dog days of the NBA content calendar, but for real basketball sickos, a time to sit around and hope for the future if you are still thinking of roundball as the heat waves wash over the summer months.

Could the Dallas Mavericks be a surprise team? A threat to the top of the Western Conference spearheaded by the Oklahoma City Thunder?

The short answer is no.

Irving is nursing a torn ACL that, in the worst-case scenario, holds him out the entire season, and the best-case scenario sees him sitting out until around the All-Star break.

This leaves Dallas leaning on D'Angelo Russell, Jaden Hardy, Brandon Williams and Ryan Nembhard as lead guards in the rough and tumble Western Conference. While Nembhard had a stellar Summer League, the JJ Barea imitator won't be enough to allow Dallas to reach contending heights. The verdict is in on Russell and Hardy, two very flawed but serviceable rotational players –– though not on a club that can win big.

However, the Mavericks' wing and front-court depth give Dallas reason to hope for a fun campaign even if they aren't chasing a championship.

A defense centered around Flagg, Davis, Lively II, Washington, Marshall and the supporting cast should be more than enough for Dallas to return to the postseason and have a strong argument to land safely in the top six and avoid the NBA Play-in tournament.

However, barring a massive step forward from Max Christie –– who showed great flashes as a scorer –– and Flagg being more than ready as a go-to scoring option in his freshman season, the chances of the Mavericks making noise in the 2025-26 season are slim.

The best-case scenario for the Dallas Mavericks is that Irving returns at some point this year, they net a favorable matchup in the playoffs and win one postseason series to build on in the coming years. The worst-case scenario? A failure to survive the play-in tournament.