How the Mavericks went from the NBA’s final four to national punchline

A fter committing one of the most egregious tank jobs in NBA history on Friday, the Mavericks have set the stage for Luka Dončić to leave the franchise within the next two years. No sooner had Dallas waved the white flag and sat five key players in game they had to win in order to keep their playoff hopes alive did NBA commissioner Adam Silver open an investigation into the Mavericks’ desperate, transparent attempt to hold onto their first-round draft pick this year.

How did the Mavs, less than 12 months removed from the doorstep of the NBA finals, become the biggest poverty franchise in the entire league?

Last year, as Dallas were battling the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference finals, their impending fall from grace may have seemed hard to predict, but the signs were everywhere if you looked. It was the Mavs’ best year since their 2011 championship season – what surely will go down as the height of the Dončić era – as their Slovenian star was adding to his legacy as a generational talent and future all-time great seemingly by the night. But one couldn’t help but peer through the smoke and mirrors into their bleak cap, contract and free-agency future.

Fast-forward to today and things in Dallas couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to last spring’s feelgood playoff run. Clearly in retrospect, it was fool’s gold: the Mavs were never as good as they thought they were. After missing the play-in tournament entirely in humiliating fashion over the weekend, the Mavs have finished with a losing record for the first time since Dončić’s rookie year. What does it all mean? That their doomsday clock has accelerated to midnight: It’s no longer a question of if the Mavericks will lose Dončić, but when.

So how did they