What Went Wrong For The Dallas Mavericks?

The Dallas Mavericks‘ season didn’t exactly end as they might have hoped.

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The team lost to the Houston Rockets Tuesday night, leaving them out of the playoffs in the first round after being beaten 4-1 in the series.

One can’t go and say the season was a complete failure, as the team still finished 50-32 in arguably one of the deepest Western Conferences in NBA history from top to bottom, but the goal in Dallas was to win a championship, something that the Mavericks clearly fell short of.

So what went wrong for the Mavericks this season?

Everyone is going to point to the Rajon Rondo trade as the team’s biggest downfall, and you really can’t argue against that notion.

Apr 18, 2015; Houston, TX, USA; Dallas Mavericks guard Rajon Rondo (9) in game one of the first round of the NBA Playoffs against the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports /

Before the All-Star break, the Mavericks were 36-19 with an offense that was scoring 106.3 points per game with a plus-5.4 differential. Rondo arrived with the Mavericks in December, meaning that he was a contributing factor to their success over that time span.

Post-All-Star break told a different story for the team and Rondo, however, as the team played barely better than .500 down the stretch, only winning 14 of their last 27 games. Their offense only produced 102.9 points per game, and their differential dropped to minus-2.1.

Rondo wasn’t terrible for the Mavs during the regular season, but he certainly didn’t help as much as owner Mark Cuban probably would’ve liked. He did get injured and miss stretches of games for the team, which could be an argument in and of itself for why he never exactly adjusted to the team.

Of course there has been enough speculation that him and head coach Rick Carlisle wanted to run two different offenses and had a bit of a power struggle, which could also have been a huge reason why Rondo never quite fit in.

Regardless, Rondo really dropped off the map in terms of his individual offensive production this season, only averaging 9.3 points and 6.5 assists per game for the Mavericks, numbers that are both less than his career averages of 10.8 points and 8.3 assists per game.

What really held him back was his poor shooting, as he only shot 43.6 percent from the field and 45.2 percent from the free-throw line for Dallas. Rondo became an offensive liability for the Mavericks, regardless of what kind of defense he could play when he decided to show up on that end of the floor.

When breaking things down, it actually makes sense why Dallas’ offense struggled more with Rondo at the helm. When he’s playing point guard, he tends to dominate the ball because he loves to initiate the offense himself and make the passes at the right times for assists, meaning he’s looking for spot-up shooters and guys that can dominate the pick-and-roll game.

Unfortunately, that takes the ball out of Monta Ellis‘ hands, someone who is a scorer in his own right but has never excelled in the catch-and-shoot game. Ellis is only a career 39.4 percent mid-range shooter and 31.4 percent shooter from three-point range. Ellis is a much better finisher around the basket, where he shoots 64.5 percent in his career from within three feet of the rim.

With Ellis not being a dominant spot-up shooter, that clogs up the offense more, especially when Tyson Chandler plays primarily down low and Dirk Nowitzki has now found a home as a shooter that lives primarily on mid-range attempts.

Nowitzki has been a great three-point shooter for his career, but that’s not where he attempts most of his shots, especially this season as he only attempted 3.6 threes per game.

Apr 26, 2015; Dallas, TX, USA; Dallas Mavericks guard Monta Ellis (11) argues a call with the referees during the second half against the Houston Rockets in game four of the first round of the NBA Playoffs. at American Airlines Center. The Mavericks defeated the Rockets 121-109. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports /

So with Rondo, Ellis, Nowitzki and Chandler all not looking to really shoot the ball from the outside, Carlisle was essentially forced to ask Chandler Parsons, Richard Jefferson and Al-Farouq Aminu to take almost all of the team’s three-point shots when Rondo was in the lineup.

With Rondo out of the lineup, Carlisle could put in another perimeter shooter such as J.J. Barea or Devin Harris, as they are both better career shooters from deep than Rondo.

Having an offense that doesn’t have great spacing means that the team has to rely on their defense to force turnovers and create a lot of opportunities in transition, something that the Mavericks didn’t excel at doing this season. The team ranked 28th overall in the league in turnover ratio, meaning that playing that brand of basketball wasn’t their forte either.

Did the team find a way to be effective on offense as a whole? Yes they did. But without a reliable defense and quality shooting opportunities down the stretch, there was only so much great coaching by Carlisle that could actually save this Mavericks team from a low playoff seed and an early exit when they got there.

The good news for the Mavericks is that Rondo will most likely never wear the team’s jersey again so they can get back to focusing on their offensive shooting identity, but the defense will still be a problem for a team that finished 17th in the league in defensive rating.

The Mavericks need to focus on finding a full-time point guard that can shoot to run the offense, while still focusing on adding depth and talent around Nowitzki. Parsons, who was injured during the playoffs, should be back healthy for the start of next season, and as long as they can retain Ellis, this team should still be ready to make some noise just as they did this season.

Dallas has a formula to win basketball games, and they shouldn’t have messed with it trying to acquire Rondo in the first place. If this team can regain their identity and focus on carrying out Carlisle’s game plan as they’ve done in the past, then they will still find themselves among the West’s best next year.

*Statistics courtesy of NBA.com and Basketball-Reference.

Next: Dirk Nowitzki: Is Mavs Star Fading?

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