Mavericks' disastrous streak poised to persist following rumors of next shakeup

Will Miller

Dallas Mavericks / Sam Hodde/GettyImages

The Dallas Mavericks are in the midst of one of the most adverse situations in NBA history. Dallas has been in a downward spiral ever since they traded Luka Doncic on February 1, and after it was announced that Kyrie Irving tore his left ACL on Monday night versus the Sacramento Kings, hope for this Mavericks' season is looking increasingly dim.

The Mavericks simply can’t catch a break in the injury department, as they will be without eight players for their game against the Milwaukee Bucks tonight. Head coach Jason Kidd has set the tone for this squad with a resilient and next-man-up mentality, but Dallas has gotten to a point where they will simply be too injured for too long to make any significant noise in the playoffs.

Dallas drove Irving till the wheels fell off due to all of the absences in their lineup, and now they’ll pay a hefty consequence for doing so. Irving didn’t need to lead the NBA in minutes per game for nearly this entire past month at 32 years old if it wasn’t for Nico Harrison opting to ship out a potential-packed guard in Quentin Grimes for an injured wing in Caleb Martin, which made Dallas’ guard depth beyond Irving very thin.

The only other true point guards on this roster besides Irving were really Dante Exum and Spencer Dinwiddie, and the Mavericks don’t have any guards that can scale to the volume and same efficiency that Irving can offensively, but Grimes would’ve been the next best thing. Grimes is a budding young role player with untapped potential, and Mavericks fans got to see that at the forefront multiple times this season. He recently even scored 44 points for the Philadelphia 76ers, and Doncic and him are proving how colossal of a failure Harrison’s trade deadline moves were.

Mavericks in danger of losing key assistant coach to potential promotion

The Mavericks are suffering losses across the board and Harrison’s hypothesis over this new team’s potential success has taken a drastic turn for the worse, yet the onslaught of bad news continues.

Per recent rumors, Mavericks assistant coach Alex Jensen has become the front runner for the University of Utah men’s basketball head coach position. Jensen played for the Utes during the late 90s, and now he has the opportunity to become a Division I head coach at his alma mater.

This would be a tough blow to Dallas’ coaching staff, as Jensen has been one of Kidd’s top assistants since joining the Mavericks in 2023. For the sake of Jensen’s career, hopefully he gets this promotion or another opportunity, but his departure would only add to all the inner turmoil the Mavericks have been experiencing ever since this Doncic trade.

Not only have there been mixed feelings inside Dallas’ organization ever since Harrison made the Doncic move, but Dallas has been operating in a PR nightmare, as another assistant head coach in Darrell Armstrong was arrested a few weeks ago for aggravated assault.

The Mavericks truly haven’t been able to maintain a semblance of control over any facet of their organization since this Doncic trade, and Jensen leaving would ultimately hinder Dallas’ continuity even if only marginally, and this is a team that desperately needs some continuity.

Many fans feel like they don’t even know who this Mavericks organization is, and while Mavericks fans can’t knock Jensen for likely taking a massive career advancement, his departure will only add to the amount of assistant head coaching vacancies that Harrison and Kidd will need to address this offseason.

Change isn’t always a bad thing, but it often takes a while for a change within an NBA organization to be fully adjusted to by all those involved, and the Mavericks have had so much change over this past month.

It’d be easy to say that Jensen leaving would be the tip of the iceberg for Dallas in terms of maintaining any continuity of this roster beyond a few wily veterans and Kidd, but Dallas’ ship fully sank when Irving tore his ACL on Monday night.

Now in the middle of the pack of the West, all Mavericks fans can hope and pray is that this team of misfit pieces from all of Dallas’ injuries can somehow take this team back to the playoffs or lose enough games to get a favorable pick at this year’s NBA Draft.

Will Miller

Will Miller is a senior contributor and is in his second year with The Smoking Cuban. Will has been following the Dallas Mavericks for over a decade and is currently working on getting a Bachelors in Science in Sports Journalism from the University of North Texas, as he is also covering sports for the North Texas TV station. While Will is opening up his coverage to cover other sports for UNT, basketball and the Dallas Mavericks are his true passion and he hopes to continue writing and producing Mavericks related content as his career continues. Will has very solid in-game analysis and knowledge about the intricacies of the game, and has a very broad understanding about the NBA as a whole. Going forward Will is looking to be more expansive in his coverage of the Mavericks beyond writing as well. Outside of writing about the Mavericks, Will enjoys hanging with friends, going to the gym, and watching other sports and live events.