SO SAD: This Is The End Of The Journey Am Done I Won’t Play Again “Daizen Maeda” Says As He Depart In The…

 sheepish attempt to satisfy fans on “I Feel Slovenia” night at the American Airlines Center — officially eliminated Dallas from the play-in and broke a tie between the teams for 10th place in the lottery standings.

Two days later, Doncic sat out the regular-season finale and curtly responded to a question about the late-season tank. “I didn’t like that decision. That’s it,” he said.

“Not to rehash old stuff, but once we didn’t control our own destiny, it was like, all right, we can’t be foolish,” Mavs general manager Nico Harrison told ESPN. “The worst-case scenario was we were 11 versus being 10 — and you don’t make the play-in and don’t get your pick. Then I think I would probably look more foolish than doing it the opposite way.”

stepped on the American Airlines Center floor, Lively was intrigued by the possibility of playing alongside the superstar backcourt duo of Doncic and Kyrie Irving. In fact, he said Dallas quickly became his preferred destination.

“When I looked at the draft, this is the spot where I wanted to be because I knew if I came here, I was going to make an impact,” Lively told ESPN. “I could come here, learn, and just try to be myself. That’s what I’ve done this whole time and I feel like I’ve grown.”

Lively, however, readily admits that he didn’t envision having this sort of success so early in his career. Dallas has a net rating of plus-19.7 points per 100 possessions in the 261 minutes that Lively has played with Doncic and Irving during the playoffs, the best of 178 trios in the league to play at least 175 minutes this postseason.

Like the Mavs, Lively was also coming off a disappointing 2022-23 campaign after arriving at Duke as the top national recruit in ESPN’s rankings. He averaged only 5.2 points and 5.4 rebounds in 20.6 minutes per game during his freshman year before declaring for the draft.