What if the Dallas Mavericks got the 5th Seed?

After finishing the season on an impressive note, the Dallas Mavericks found themselves as the 6th seed in the West. But what if they could have finished 5th?

At the beginning of the season, Dallas was considered by many to be one of the worst teams in the league with most people predicting them to finish near the bottom of the Western Conference. Despite the predictions, the Mavericks had other plans as the season got underway.

With both Chandler Parsons and Wesley Matthews coming back from major injuries to start the season, Dallas once again turned to Dirk Nowitzki to shoulder the load. After a roller coaster of a season, Dallas found themselves fighting for a playoff spot come the last week of the season.

In the West, it was always the 5th spot that was sought after the most. The Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs had the first two spots locked up with really no competition. The next two spots was a back-and-forth between with Oklahoma City Thunder and the Los Angeles Clippers, teams that were clearly not on the same level as the top two teams but above the rest of the West. That resulted in the top four seeds being locked down for most of the season.

Then comes the sought after 5th seed that the Memphis Grizzlies held down for the majority of the year until they lost Marc Gasol and Mike Conley for the season. But with two weeks to go in the season, which team could pull off the necessary wins to finish 5th? The race was on between the Blazers, Mavericks, Rockets, Jazz and Grizzlies.

As we all know, the Portland Trail Blazers finished as the 5th seed out West, just two games ahead of the Dallas Mavericks. So what if the Mavericks could have won a couple more games and finished 5th out West?

Dallas would have matched up with their lovely friends in Los Angeles in a series that would have been headlined around DeAndre Jordan and the drama that took place over the summer with the Mavericks. I’m not saying the Mavericks would have won the series, but it’s safe to say the Clippers were a better matchup for the Mavericks than the Thunder were.

Then there is the situation surrounding the injuries that occurred for the Clippers. After losing both Chris Paul and Blake Griffin for the remainder of the playoffs, the Clippers odds of moving past the Blazers in the first round dropped dramatically. Suddenly, getting the 5th seed became even more important.

Since the injuries did take place in-game against Portland, you can’t assume the injuries would have taken place against Dallas. But what if they did? What if this Dallas Mavericks team got the luxury of playing half a series against that injury riddled Clippers team with DeAndre Jordan as their best player like Portland did?

Then factor in the possibility of Chandler Parsons coming back for the second round, which was very much a possibility. After Parsons went down for another season ending knee surgery, the timeline for his recovery was always centered around the second round of the playoffs. If Dallas could have pulled out a heroic first round upset, Parsons could have possibly made his return to the court for the second round on.

The Mavericks would have still been battling other injuries to Deron Williams, David Lee and others, but we could have been watching a Mavericks team (with potentially Chandler Parsons) face a Warriors team in the second round. A Warriors team still without their MVP in Stephen Curry as he recovers from his MCL injury.

I’m not saying the Mavericks would have beaten the Warriors in a series with or without Curry, but it could have been interesting to say the least.

Next: The Plan Behind Dirk Nowitzki Opting Out

The 5th seed out West was always sought after, but after the injuries to the Clippers and the MCL injury to Steph Curry, the 5th seed became as important as ever.