Mavericks disrespectfully overlooked by NBA's Opening Night schedule

Entering the 2024-25 season, the Dallas Mavericks are coming off one of their top-three best seasons in franchise history.

Dallas made the NBA Finals for the first time since 2011 and looks like they will be a powerhouse in the Western Conference for years to come. They have the perfect combination of youth and veterans on the team, and their superstar duo of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving has proved that they are one of the top duos in the NBA.

Despite all of that, the Mavs continue to get disrespected.

Mavericks disrespectfully left off NBA's Opening Night slate

NBA insider Shams Charania of The Athletic reported the NBA's Opening Night schedule on Monday, and he reported that it would feature the New York Knicks playing the Boston Celtics for ring night and the Minnesota Timberwolves playing the Los Angeles Lakers.

While the Celtics getting an Opening Night game for the team to receive their rings was a given, the Mavs definitely deserved an Opening Night game. They are coming off an excellent season in which they zoomed through the playoffs, but the NBA still didn't give them an Opening Night game.

Instead, the NBA chose the Timberwolves, who Dallas beat in five games in the Western Conference Finals, and the Los Angeles Lakers who got bounced in the first round of the playoffs along with the Knicks.

While Los Angeles, New York, and Minnesota are all poised to be great teams next year, the Mavs are arguably going to be better than all three of them. The Mavs were playing their best basketball of the season throughout their end-of-season run that stretched into the playoffs, and now that they added Klay Thompson, they are right in position to keep this positive momentum going.

Doncic and the Mavs are among the favorites to win the Western Conference, but the NBA is prioritizing the bigger market teams such as the Knicks and Lakers on Opening Night over the Mavs. Anthony Edwards has also individually gained tons of fans over the last few months, and it's no shock that they want Minnesota to play on national television to start the season either.

While Mavs fans do have the Christmas Day game against the Timberwolves to look forward to, it does have to be disappointing that they didn't land an Opening Night game. Dallas had one of the best offseasons in the NBA, and rather than them getting to display that to the world on Opening Night, they'll have to wait a few days.

If Doncic's game takes another big jump as it did last season, Mavs fans will quickly forget about their favorite team getting left off the Opening Night slate because Dallas will likely be competing for a top seed in the Western Conference.