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No. 8: Dallas Mavericks
Last Season: 50-32
7th place in West; Lost to Houston 4-1 in Round 1
When DeAndre Jordan committed to sign with the Dallas Mavericks as an unrestricted free agent on July 3, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban celebrated with lead recruiter/small forward Chandler Parsons -- and with good reason. Finally, Dallas had been able to lure the star free agent Cuban had been unsuccessfully chasing since winning the 2011 NBA championship.
So it's understandable why the Mavericks were devastated when Jordan changed course the following week, and after a surreal day of rumors, re-signed with the Los Angeles Clippers when the NBA's summer moratorium ended on July 10. With the top free agents already having committed, Dallas was left to pick up the pieces without a real Plan B. The Mavericks have put together a team that could contend for a playoff spot if everything goes right, but more likely will be back in the lottery -- and possibly too good to retain the top-7 protected pick Dallas sent to the Boston Celtics for Rajon Rondo last December.
The makeshift team the Mavericks built last season after spending their cap space on Parsons actually started the season on a record-setting offensive pace. Through Dec. 18, Dallas was scoring 113.6 points per 100 possessions -- an offensive rating 9.8 percent better than league average (103.5). That mark would have surpassed the 2003-04 Mavericks for the best relative offense since the ABA-NBA merger:
Still, the organization figured the team needed to improve defensively (Dallas ranked 20th in defensive rating) to compete in the playoffs. So the Mavericks pulled the trigger on a trade sending starting point guard Jameer Nelson, reserves Jae Crowder and Brandan Wright and the pick to the Celtics in exchange for Rondo.
Some regression was inevitable given how dramatically the Dallas offense had beaten expectations early in the year. But nobody in the organization was prepared for the Mavericks to drop all the way to 13th in offensive rating the rest of the season, barely better than league average. While Dallas did improve slightly defensively, finishing 18th in defensive rating, the Mavericks' winning percentage dipped from .704 to .564.
Things got worse in the playoffs when Rondo again clashed with head coach Rick Carlisle and was benched in the second half of Dallas' Game 2 loss to the Houston Rockets. The Mavericks were already without Parsons, who had tried to play through torn cartilage in his right knee, and Rondo was sent home after Game 2, ostensibly due to a back injury. Down two starters, Dallas lost the series 4-1.