I ' m sure I ' m leaving things out , but . In the first two postchampionship offseasons . Dallas let Tyson Chandler go , wasted resources chasing big fish like Deron Willians and Dwight H o w a r d m a v e r i c k s f r e e a g e n t s h i s t o r y h a s sanwhitesidedeandrejordan . The Mavericks were never fully able to recover from these two years , in which the championship team was dismantled . Dallas was stranded in mediocrity for the next few years . In 2014 , Dallas surprisingly took the 1 seeded Spurs to seven games in the opening round of the playoffs . It looked like the Mavs would be a playoff team for the next few years , led by Dirk , Monta Ellis , as well as improving players like Jae Crowder and Brandan Wright . Then , after wasting vasluable time and resources trying in vain to sign Carmelo Anthony , we signed Chandler Parsons overpaying to snub the Rockets and the Mavs timeline took a turn downhill . Parsons never became the star player Mark Cuban hoped . instead spending much of his tenure here injured . and according to rumor , Monta Ellis developed jealously towards Parsons and sour feelings towards the Mavs organization . Although we started off that next season as the best offensive squad in the NBA a very entertaining team we were pretty bad on defense . Mark Cuban saw an opportunity to add an all star player to the Mavs via trade and pulled the trigger . We traded Crowder , Wright , draft picks , and Jameer Nelson to the Celtics for Rajon Rondo . The Mavs timeline took an even shadier turn . Rondo did not thrive in Carlisle ' s offensive system and the two clashed . Far from improving , the posttrade Mavericks were very mediocre and barely made the playoffs . Rajon Rondo basically quit pouted , fought with Carlisle , etc . on the Mavericks during the playoffs putting the organization in a bind . Either Carlisle could go or Rondo would go . Cuban chose Carlisle the obvious choice , and the Mavs entered the offseason without a clear direction . Mark Cuban decided to swing for the big one again . He courted DeAndre Jordan , using Chandler Parsons as a social agent of sorts . His efforts finally paid off when DeAndre Jordan committed to sign with the Mavs . Wesley Matthews , fresh off a torn achilles , also signed with the Mavericks . But , then Cuban ' s efforts backfired when Jordan went back on his commitment and decided to sign with the Clippers . This left the Mavs in a precarious position , basically unable to recover . Their other offseason moves were predicated on the Jordan signing . Widely expected to fail , the 20152016 Mavs basically overachieved by making it to the playoffs . Justin Anderson and Dwight Powell looked like they had promise to develop , and guys like Raymond Felton and Deron Williams now older , injury prone , and signed with the Mavs after all had much better seasons than expected . Entering the 2016 offseason , Cuban likely believed that Anderson and Powell would continue to develop they haven ' t . He let Parsons walk and after briefly courting bigger name free agents opted to sign Harrison Barnes to a big contract instead . PostParsons , Cuban probably hoped the Mavs would avoid the injury plague . Instead , the injury plague returned with a vengeance Dirk has been bothered by injuries and only returned tonight , DWill seems injury prone again , Devin Harris seems to be almost perpetually injured , Barea tore his calf after beginning the season on fire . etc . Frankly , this team hasn ' t a contender for anything since the Rondo trade . Before that , we had a world class offense and were regularly putting up 120 points . After that we were barely getting by only made the playoffs last year because our role players really stepped up and the Western conference as a whole regressed . This year , with Dirk , Deron , and Barea injured , we ' re a very bad team . Dirk is getting old and too slow to be the everynight game changer he used to be . Postachilles Wesley Matthews and our young star Harrison Barnes can ' t prop this team up against high level NBA talent . Many of our role players are too unskilled or too young to make a huge difference . We are better than our 212 record indicates , but even with everyone healthy this is not a playoff team .