Engel: Next Season For Dallas Mavericks Will Be Bleak

Mac, thank you for taking the time. It is a pleasure.

Thank you very much for having me. No doubt about it. I know it's difficult to look forward with the Dallas Mavericks, because there's just so many question marks. If we want to look forward to the rest of this season, which is about a month or so, Kyrie is done. Should they shut Anthony Davis down? Has that even been given a thought? I know it's been given a thought.

In fact, I would be willing to bet. I can't see him playing now. I mean, they're without so many different guys that it doesn't really even behoove them to make the playoffs. I mean, without Kyrie Irving, they don't have the score that they were counting on. And with the team that they thought they were going to have, and I realize I am not justifying that trade at all, but with the team they thought they were going to have. And that was going to be a team that was going to be a tough out, because it had three legit defenders at the rim that were going to be nightmares for other teams, as well as perimeter scorers and elite ball handlers, and Klay Thompson and Kyrie Irving. Well, all those guys, other than Klay, is out. And Klay is a great spot-out shooter, but he's 35, and without those other guys, I don't want to say we're wasting our time, but it's pretty close. I mean, there are four games ahead of the Suns for the play-in, and I just don't know what that value does. So I think I would be willing to bet that while they may not do it intentionally, may not do it intentionally, their eyes now are going to be fully focused on the draft and the lottery.

Mac Engel joining us here from the Star-Telegram. When you think about what has happened, it's been a lot of conspiracy theories about the Dumonts and what they want to do with the team and the area and gambling. Was this strictly a basketball decision and moving on from Luka, or do you believe, obviously, there are other business interests that are involved? We would have never seen this under Cuban.

Never, never. I do believe that Patrick Dumont bought the Mavericks, one, as an investment, and then two, as a placeholder, to have a spot in line for when Texas does pass gaming, which I believe will happen. I never believe, for a second, that the long-term play is to move the Mavericks to Las Vegas. I don't think the NBA will allow that. Now, the counter to that argument has been, well, they let the Sonics leave Seattle over a building dispute, and the NFL did let the Raiders and Rams leave Los Angeles, and they were without a franchise in Los Angeles for a long time.

Those are valid. I just don't see the NBA allowing the fourth largest market to be without a franchise. I think the more likely scenario is that a franchise is granted via expansion to Las Vegas in the coming future. So those are all separate from basketball, and the more people I talk to who I trust on this subject with the Mavericks, I think this just came down to ego.

I think Nico Harrison and some other members too, not Patrick Dumont. I think Nico Harrison was sick of Luka Doncic and did not feel like they could win a championship, or he was going to be worth the $350 million that he's going to be due, that he would have been due, had he remained a Maverick this summer. So those are two separate entities, but that's why I ultimately think Luka Doncic is with the Lakers.

Mac Engle joining us here from the Star-Telegram is the JR Sport Reshow on the Infinity Sports Network. You talk about Nico Harrison having an ego and being sick of Luka Doncic. He just took them to an NBA finals. He's now sitting on the beach with his wife when he's not throwing alley-oops to LeBron. And Nico, at the press conference, pretty much said, hey, this is not a long play.

This is a short play. Is it his intention to ultimately just go back to corporate America? Like, this isn't a dream job for him, is it? I know he played ball, but is this a dream job?

I still can't get my head around that they did it. And that has been tossed out to me by somebody who's familiar and knows the worst of the franchise, that they threw out of the NFL. If this doesn't work out, then he can easily just go back to Nike and the corporate world, because he's not going to get another NBA job. I'll tell you that.

Remember, you have to go back. NBA teams have been in pursuit of Nico Harrison for quite a while before he ultimately agreed with Mark Cuban to be the president of basketball operations, GM, whatever. The San Antonio Spurs knocked on his door for a long time, and he said no every time. And when they hired him, it was a big deal. And in fairness to Nico, right up until the moment, he traded Luke Adontich for, as far as I'm concerned, what a Mavericks employee told me, pennies on the dollar. He'd done pretty well. The trades that he had made looked good. The acquisitions looked good. Convincing Klay Thompson to leave the Lakers, or pardon me, to say no to the Lakers in favor of the Mavericks, everything looked good.

And that's why this one caught everybody blindside. Even as I sit here and talk about it with you, and I've talked about this to death for the last month, I still can't believe they did it. Because you said it, Mark Cuban would never, Mark Cuban had some questionable player decisions in his long run as the owner of GM, but he would never, ever have allowed Luca to walk out the door, and certainly not for what they got in return.

No way. Well, Mack, you think about the Cubans selling his stake. At the time, it was said that he was going to have final decision on basketball matters.

That has obviously not been the case. And it was a little surprising to hear that when you sell away the majority of something. And really, since the trade, all we've heard from Cuban is telling the fan to sit down and shut up. Can we expect more at some point, or is he just going to ride the wave because he sold his stake and he has his own business interests here?

He doesn't have any say in personnel anymore. That was one of those things that was reported. And when he sold the team, it had that very unique caveat of, I'm selling the team and I'm selling the majority of the team, but I'm keeping X shares, whatever it was, and I'm going to be the final say on basketball decisions. You know, that was really rare.

That's a really unique deal. Well, by the end of May 1st of June, he had pretty much sold the rest of his shares. And the final say on basketball decisions was pretty much done by July. And that was just one of those little details that went kind of off the radar, because with the summertime and the season was over, the finals were over.

And, you know, nobody just really noticed it. But everybody noticed it when they traded away Luke Adoncic. He doesn't, he loves the Mavericks. They're a huge part of his life and his legacy, for that matter.

But he has no say in those kinds of decisions anymore, obviously. Mack Angle here with us from the Star Telegram. So what happens next? We saw the price hike for the fans and how that was communicated was just, hey, we got to reinvest in the team. And so now, you know, we're going to raise the ticket prices. We know what the fan response has been.

What do the fans do? What is the best case scenario for the basketball team? It just seems like they're likely going to be in the doldrums for a few years and they bled the team out. The best case, I think, for the Mavericks is that, and again, I'm, you're asking me to really stretch a pretzel here. I think the best case is what happened to them is what happened to Oklahoma City when they lost Harden and they lost Russell Westbrook and they lost KD. It took a minute, but that's the best team in the league now. You know, they, now the difference was they stockpiled graphics and they were very aggressive in young player acquisitions, but they found SGA and lots of other guys who were really good.

Chet Holmgren, obviously, that took a minute. But last season and now this season, that's best case scenario because Kyrie is going to be 33 and he's going to be coming off a major injury. They were asking, this was the part that Bob, there's a lot of parts to this trade that bothered me, but you were asking two guys on the wrong side of 30, both of whom came into the league with one year of college experience.

So they were really young. That means they've been playing 82 game schedules, you know, in theory, since they were 19 years old, 19 or 20. And that's a lot of mileage and everybody's like, well, LeBron this. Okay, well, LeBron's the outlier. LeBron doesn't apply to everybody else. And the part was Kyrie that always worried me. And I remember asking about it before the season started about falling and taking the way he falls because his bread is buttered on plays at the rim and dribble drive penetration. He's one of the best who ever played at it.

And, you know, we've seen guys who eventually lose that. Dwayne Wade, Derrick Rose, even Michael Jordan. He became more of a turnaround post-up jump shooter as he got older. And he was 6'6".

Kyrie's 6'2.5". So I would think he will exercise that player option. I would imagine Anthony Davis, who's going to sit it out and they're going to roll with what they got for next season and just hope it stays together. But I think they're, you know, I'm not terribly optimistic about it, but my gut tells me today, here in early March, that's what they're going to, and remember, Kyrie's not coming back for eight to ten months.

That's right. Like, even if he can, best case scenario, best case, he's back February 1. Like, he ain't coming back. He ain't coming back by Christmas. He's not coming back by January or MLK Day or any of those, you know, sort of signature NBA regular season moments before the trade. He's not coming back by January.

And when he does come back, is he the same guy? So I think, you know, they got their work cut out for him. And if I'm, you know, someone who wants to see the franchise do well, be honest with you, and it sucks.

I hate it. I loved watching Luke Adoncich play basketball. And I understand there were some, you know, he had some prima don moments and there were some concerns about his weight, which were justified. But dude, that was one of the most enjoyable guys I've ever watched playing basketball. And I've watched a lot of dudes play basketball.

And now he's a Laker. Well, Mac, as we start to wrap things up, is there more dirt? I mean, outside of, hey, Luca likes to drink, Luca likes to smoke.

Is there more that's coming out or is this really, like you said, at this point, unless he's like a heroin dealer, he's on the Epstein list. And I'm saying that tongue in cheek. But who cares?

No. I mean, if we went back, I understand it is a day and it is a different day and age. 2025 is not 1985. If we were to sit there and monitor the cigarettes and beer that Larry Bird consumed back in the day. I mean, if Nico Harrison was running the Celtics, Larry Bird would have been traded to the Milwaukee Bucks. And I get it.

I mean, Luca Adoncich, his weight does fluctuate and he falls down a lot. And he's, at some point, he's going to have to get real about that. But to trade him away for for what they got, that to me is professionally negligent.

Mac, last question for you. You're down and you're down in Dallas, Fort Worth. When you take a look at Jerry Jones, when you look at take a look at what's going on with the Mavericks, Jerry Jones is kind of pushed to the background every now and then. Right.

We got a new hated ownership group. That's the amazing part. Like Jerry just came off of a season and an off season where we all took turns, you know, shooting fish in the barrel. And he's used to it.

We've been doing it for 30 years. He's used to it. The team hasn't been doing NFC championship games since 95, 96.

He was used to it. They hire a coach. They don't make the playoffs. They box a coaching search. They replace him with a guy that, you know, nobody was going to hire. And so now he is the king fish in the barrel that everybody can take a pop gun and not miss. And unbelievably, Nico Harrison, the general manager of the architect of a 2024 NBA Finals team is now the biggest dope on the block.

Unbelievable. Hey, let's see how long he sticks around with the team to before he's what word did he use, Mac? He says they'd hang him. Isn't that what he said? No, he didn't go there. He used the shovel. You know, he used the shovel. Yeah, he avoided the noose. Thank God he avoided the noose.

He used the shovel, but he's not wrong. Oh, yeah, he'll he'll be he's already started to throw the dirt on himself. But and you know what? Here's the good news. Back in the back right after the season ended.

Both of them got both he and Jason Kidd got contract extensions. Lisa get paid on the way out the doors on the way back to Nike. Get the bag.

You know what I mean? Hey, going back to Portland. Hey, start selling shoes. You might as well get you the bag. And he has some good shoes to go walking into as without a shadow of a doubt.

Hey, Mac, thank you so much. You know, he's got those classic Air Jordans. You know what I'm talking about? That's what he can afford. He can afford the original Jordans. Oh, he I'm sure he has a nice shoe collection in class. Hey, Mac, where can people follow you and all of your work, all your writings, all your books for lesson, man? No, it's very kind of you.

Seriously, thank you very much. Well, you can find me on x or Twitter, Mac Engel prof, M-A-C-E-N-G-E-L-P-R-O-F. I used to teach, I don't anymore. You find me on my website, macengel.com. One of my five visitors, you can find my books there, any number of other stuff that I do. And of course, my work on StarTelegram.com. I respond, anybody emails me, I respond to them.

Anybody, anybody, anybody reaches out and takes two seconds to read my work or dog cuss me, you get a response from me. That is, I do do that. So I really appreciate you having me on.

Allow me to plug my stuff. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Oh, no, absolutely. We appreciate your time and your insight. And we'll talk to you soon, hopefully with some good news next time. Maybe baseball season will give us something because sure as well ain't going to be basketball.

Yeah, well, I did see an outfielder out there in, in sexist, might be a little hurt. So we'll, we'll wait on that one. Okay. Okay. All right. Thanks a lot.