Rick Carlisle exposed by NBA star for tactics that hindered Mavericks' Nowitzki era

While the Dallas Mavericks (14-24) and Indiana Pacers (7-31) have both had their seasons go haywire for completely different reasons, many Mavericks fans can be happy for former head coach Rick Carlisle, as Carlisle just secured his 1,000th career victory after Indiana's win over the Charlotte Hornets on Thursday.

However, Carlisle made headlines on Friday for an entirely different reason, as former All-Star DeMarcus Cousins revealed some wild recruitment tactics Carlisle used to try to lure Cousins to Dallas back in the day while on FanDuel TV's "Run It Back" show, including selfies with sentimental captions.

"He'd send me weird selfies and say, 'I'm thinking about you, and I really want to coach you,'" Cousins said when in the midst of congratulating Carlisle for 1,000 career victories. This is obviously hilarious and something Mavericks fans can poke fun at nowadays, but it undoubtedly highlights how behind the curve the Mavericks were in terms of their free agency recruitment during the twilight of Dirk Nowitzki's career.

Rick Carlisle tried recruit DeMarcus Cousins to Dallas with selfies

To be clear, Cousins didn't specify the exact season when Carlisle was doing this, but one can assume it was during Cousins' prime in all likelihood, which was from about 2013-2018. These were during the same years when Dallas was trying to rebuild a contender around Nowitzki, despite being unsuccessful, and this wild story shows just how out of touch Dallas' upper brass was with the modern NBA during that period.

Many Mavericks fans will also remember the infamous cartoon-themed recruitment video Mark Cuban pitched to Dwight Howard back in 2013 free agency, which was ridiculed by fans online for how corny it was when it was leaked.

Former Mavericks GM Donnie Nelson also drew criticism for being past his prime in terms of recruiting players to Dallas during this period as well, so it makes sense why Cuban wanted to interject some younger heads into the organization with the hiring of Jason Kidd and Nico Harrison in 2021.

However, Mavericks fans know how terribly this eventually backfired because of Harrison's wild ploy to trade Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. Though Harrison's ability to relate to the younger generation and his acumen in dealing with star players were seen as a huge win for the Mavericks back in 2021 due to how lackluster they'd been at recruiting players to come to Dallas for the previous decade, which is wild considering everything that has happened since.

Overall, this was a hilarious anecdote from Cousins, putting Carlisle's recruitment tactics at the time into even further doubt from Mavericks fans. Carlisle was probably trying to be satirical in an effort to win Cousins over, but clearly the humor didn't land, and now Carlisle is being exposed for something many NBA and Mavericks fans will think was weird.

Carlisle is still a legendary coach and will be entrenched in Mavericks lore forever after winning the 2011 championship, but it's somewhat depressing to see the Mavericks get continually exposed for their poor recruitment tactics during the twilight of Nowitzki's career, as that was unfortunately the stepping stone that prompted eventual front office change and the arrival of Harrison.