Dallas Mavericks

Southwest Division

Dallas Mavericks Power Rankings - 2012-13

Power Ranking
WEEK	RECORD	RANK	COMMENT
Week 24	40-40	17	The back-to-.500 Mavs can console themselves with the knowledge that they surely would have extended their playoff run to 13 straight seasons if Dirk Nowitzki didn't miss the first 27 games. Except that they really can't with so much riding on a free-agent summer that's just 2½ months away.
Week 23	38-39	16	You heard it here first: Dallas absolutely, positively beats Phoenix and finally gets the chance to hack away those nasty beards. The reality, though, is that even an 18-11 record since the Mavs made the Beard Oath public gives them a 0.7 percent shot at making the playoffs, according to numberFire.com.
Week 22	36-37	15	In all of his years here, Dirk Nowitzki had never made a go-ahead, game-winning 3 with Dallas down in the final 10 seconds of a regular-season game until the afternoon bomb he dropped on Chicago. Let's see what winning a game they never should have won does for the Mavs' playoff karma.
Week 21	34-36	16	The Mavs are 8-3 since 37-year-old Mike James became the starting point guard and will finish no worse than No. 9 in West with the way Utah's going/giving in. But the last three games of Dallas' crucial six-game homestand offer up no gimmes with the Clips, Pacers and Bulls coming to town.
Week 20	31-35	18	After the Mavericks had inched within three games of .500 for the first time since Dec. 21, San Antonio and Oklahoma City completed 4-0 season sweeps of Dallas, making the locals wonder what they really have to look forward to even if the Mavs somehow found a way to sneak into the top eight.
Week 19	29-33	18	With Utah spiraling and Portland presumably content to fade into the lottery, Dallas still has some unforeseen playoff life. Yet the most likely scenario remains finishing a frustrating ninth in the West and never getting back to the magical .500 mark that allows the Mavs to finally bust out some razors.
Week 18	26-33	20	After two full-fledged debacles -- blowing a 25-point lead in Memphis and then giving up 136 points in Houston -- Dallas can't even delude itself into thinking that the playoffs are still in play. The Mavs, at this point, will be fortunate to make it back to .500 just once to finally hack those beards away.
Week 17	25-30	18	It felt undeniably like a playoff game Sunday when Dirk Nowitzki's Mavericks and Kobe Bryant's Lakers traded haymakers in Dallas. But the resultant fear after yet another narrow L, naturally, is that the Mavs won't get any closer to the actual playoffs with so much ground still to make up.
Week 16	23-29	18	The Mavs have outscored teams by an average of 4.4 points per 100 possessions over the past 10 games, way up from their norm of minus-1.6. Yet they still have to leapfrog the Lakers, Blazers and Rockets just to get into the playoffs for a 13th straight season. (Ian Levy, Two Man Game)
Week 15	22-28	16	Since the Mavs sank to 10 games below .500, they're 9-5 with losses you can live with to OKC (two), San Antonio, Portland (in a road heartbreaker) and Golden State (on the road with Dirk out). Hard to see, though, how they ever make it back to .500 to keep those beards out of ZZ Top range.
Week 14	20-27	19	A league-leading eight losses when leading in the final 90 seconds of regulation or overtime for the former close-game kings, coupled with the first muscle strain for a franchise player who so rarely misses games, just adds up to more evidence that 2012-13 is a not-gonna-happen season.
Week 13	19-25	18	The schedule has served up some weary opposition and the Mavs have capitalized, winning six of eight and losing only to the top two teams in our rankings. Must be hard for them to resist the what-if talk, sitting four games out of a playoff spot and sporting a league-worst record of 1-8 in OT.
Week 12	18-24	18	Playing so many close games, especially after Dirk Nowitzki missed the season's first 27, is one reason the Mavs refuse to believe they're as poor as their record shows. The score has amazingly been within three points in the final 30 seconds in 25 of their 42 games ... with Dallas just 8-17 so far.
Week 11	15-23	23	Don't even bother trying to tell these guys that the Grizz, after their epic OT battle with San Antonio, might have been gassed Saturday night. Pounding Memphis, after their own OT breakthrough in Sac-Town, clinched the Mavs' first taste of happiness since, uh, opening night at Staples Center.
Week 10	13-21	25	Remember when the Mavericks were the NBA's masters of winning close games? Dirk Nowitzki does, which surely helped prompt the face of the franchise to voice his frustration -- loudly -- after a home loss to New Orleans somehow dropped the Mavs to 0-7 in OT games this season.
Week 9	12-19	24	The demise of the Cowboys will keep the locals occupied for another week or two at least. Then it'll start to hit folks that the Mavs' run of 12 consecutive playoff appearances is already in serious peril in a conference with so many unexpected teams (Warriors, Rockets, Blazers) to leapfrog.
Week 8	12-16	21	The last time Dallas limped into Christmas below .500, back in Dirk Nowitzki's second season, Mark Cuban emerged without warning a few days later to buy the team and lead a franchise resurrection. Even with Dirk back now, it sure looks like he and Cuban need a new savior from somewhere.
Week 7	11-13	22	The O.J. Mayo Show has been a fun story to keep folks occupied while Dirk heals, but the numbers are starting to stack up against Dallas in a big way. One win in 11 tries against teams with winning records, six losses by 19 points or more and the next five games against teams above .500.
Week 6	10-10	20	There's been so much glass-half-empty talk in Dallas when it comes to O.J. Mayo and the assumption that he won't be able to score this way when Dirk Nowitzki returns and the offense doesn't revolve around him. Maybe it's time to start asking: What if Mayo and Dirk do eventually click?
Week 5	8-9	22	The Mavs, for all their rotation uncertainty, did manage to scrape through November minus Dirk Nowitzki in passable fashion. The schedule, though, was one of the league's five most favorable and now gets much tougher. With no firm word how much longer they'll have to do without Dirk.
Week 4	7-7	19	The Mavs can't complain too much about a .500 record when Dirk Nowitzki -- having never missed more than nine games in any single season -- hasn't played one second yet. The problems? Their PG play is slipping steadily, and 11 of the next 15 games on their soft-'til-now schedule are roadies.
Week 3	6-5	14	The only lasting solace lately in Big D after Dirk Nowitzki revealed that his rehab from knee surgery isn't moving as swiftly as he hoped: O.J. Mayo just became the only Mav besides Nowitzki and the departed Jason Terry since 2002-03 to string together nine straight games with at least 18 points.
Week 2	4-3	13	The locals wanted to believe these Mavs, without Dirk, had some unforeseen Cinderella in them after being subjected to a collapse by baseball's Rangers, another up-and-down Cowboys season and a lockout that shut down hockey's Stars. Saturday's L in Charlotte took care of that.
Week 1	2-1	11	It's a small source of consolation, since this team is obviously headed nowhere meaningful without a healthy Nowitzki, but Dirk's early unavailability has given Darren Collison license and justification to be super aggressive. Which got the Mavs' new PG going after a rough preseason.
Preseason	0-0	16	The Mavs are the Sixers of the West. As in: Dallas, like Philly, takes a serious rankings tumble before a single game that counts thanks largely to a knee problem (Dirk Nowitzki's) that has some locals wondering if a run of 12 straight playoff trips is already in peril.
Training Camp	36-30	10	After missing out on D-Will, Dallas never dreamed it could offer only one-year deals to the rest of the free-agent pack and still come away with Mayo, Kaman, Brand and Collison. The problem? The West is suddenly super deep again. And now Dallas has to score in Free Agency 2013.