Mavericks' lottery dream faces harsh reality as tank race spirals

The Dallas Mavericks are struggling as much as anyone in the NBA, but somehow, it's not helping enough in the lottery standings.

While the month of March is known for great basketball due to March Madness, the same can't be said about the NBA. March NBA basketball has been brutal thanks to the tanking that goes on, and multiple teams in each conference are trying to bottom out to improve their lottery odds.

The Mavericks are included in that group. They've lost 14 of the last 16 games, and fans are beginning to watch the lottery standings closely. They want Dallas to sink in the standings to obtain better odds of receiving a favorable lottery pick, but the Mavericks need to accept that they aren't going to move up as far in the standings as they'd probably hope.

The tank race has turned into chaos

Dallas is currently 21-40 on the year and has the seventh-worst record in the NBA. They are just three games behind the New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz for fifth and sixth place in the lottery.

While the Pelicans are catchable due to the fact that they're one of the few teams in the top 10 that aren't tanking, they're probably the only team that the Mavericks can pass up. No matter how hard they tank, it doesn't seem like they'll move up beyond the sixth-best odds of receiving the No. 1 pick.

Want proof? Take a look at the bottom 11 teams in the NBA's current losing streak. Combined, they've lost 42 games in a row. Five teams have lost at least four games in a row, and as the season goes on, the tanking is just going to get worse.

Mavericks won't pass the Jazz in the tank race

One of the teams that the Mavericks are trailing, the Jazz, has already been fined for tanking, and Dallas fans' dreams of catching them will likely be impossible. Utah has the twelfth-hardest remaining schedule in the NBA, and on top of that, they've already shut down several of their key players.

The Jazz shut down Jaren Jackson Jr., Vince Williams Jr., and Jusuf Nurkic for the season, and Lauri Markkanen could also join this group if his hip injury proves to be serious. He also injured his ankle.

Utah is not in a position to win a ton of games down the stretch, and this three-game gap between them and Dallas could prove to be too big to close. Their tanking efforts will likely only increase as the season comes to a close, as they can't afford to lose their top-eight protected pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The next closest team after New Orleans and Utah, the Washington Wizards, are five games ahead of Dallas, and it's extremely unlikely they catch them as well.

Five games is an eternity in the tanking standings with the Mavericks only having 21 games remaining, and the Wizards' pick is top-eight protected as well. Even though Trae Young will return this week, that won't be enough for Dallas to pass them.

The tanking across the NBA is getting blatant, and regardless of how hard Dallas tries, they likely aren't going to move up. The teams in front of them are just tanking harder.