Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Cavalo Morto; Pedro Americo; 1875

Kyrie Irving tore his ACL, a crushing blow for both him and the Dallas Mavericks, who are now all out of healthy stars and quickly running low on bodies. (Jaden Hardy, who started the second half in Irving’s place on Monday against Sacramento, suffered an ankle injury in the same game and will miss time.) ESPN’s Shams Charania floated the idea of Anthony Davis shutting it down for the rest of the season as a result of Kyrie’s unavailability. Dallas is currently No. 10 in the West, three games ahead of Phoenix and just two games out of No. 6.

A team that went to the NBA Finals last season might tank out of the playoffs due to injuries to star players in their 30s.

This is where it comes back to Nico Harrison’s indefensible decision to trade (now) 26-year-old Luka Doncic in the first place without getting back substantial upside in the form of draft picks or blue-chip young players. Harrison voluntarily shrunk the Mavericks’ runway. Kyrie will turn 33 this month and will, in all likelihood, get back on the court no earlier than midseason in 2025-26. Davis turns 32 next week. This season is sunk. The Mavericks will not compete for a title. Next season, they’ll begin without Kyrie. What are the odds Davis, Klay Thompson, Max Christie, Dante Exum, the centers or whoever the Mavericks trade the centers for and whoever else Harrison can cobble together — what are the odds that collection of players, only one of which is currently an All-NBA caliber player, will be in striking distance of contention in the West when Kyrie returns? It seems a slim hope to me.

The runway with Luka was a decade long. With a young superstar, provided you don’t feel like you’re on an immediate timer to deliver a winning team, you can try different configurations. Dallas found two that worked well enough to get Luka a long playoff run: one with Jalen Brunson as the co-star, and one with Kyrie as the co-star. Instead of leaning in on that obvious common element and the pretty solid thesis that having a healthy Luka is a key ingredient to success, Harrison pivoted away. Now his runway is … what, two or three years maximum, when Irving and Davis approach or hit age 35? This year is shot, and next year’s off to a terrible start. You’re running out of pivots during this era. And because you only received Davis, Christie and a pick for Luka, you don’t have a war chest to improve the roster. You’re probably going to have to trade either Daniel Gafford or Dereck Lively II this summer to add some guard help.

There’s always a balance between “going for it” and “being patient” in NBA team-building. The goal — a championship — doesn’t change, but how you get there can evole based on market conditions, the competition, your own resources. Nico Harrison did this weird thing where he leaned into the “going for it” mode by trading for an older star but moved his team further from the goal in the process by removing the player most centrally responsible for the team’s two recent deep runs. It’s a magically dumb trick he pulled. He shrunk his runway and also disabled his most powerful engine.

His defenders (the few that exist) will eventually blame this season on bad injury luck, and they will have a point: no teams but perhaps the Pelicans and Magic and maybe the Sixers have been more cursed by injury this season than the Mavericks. But you can destroy your own luck, and by leaning into a “win now” mode with older stars when you had a mid-20s all-timer on your roster is a perfect example.

It is agreed: The Basketball Gods smited you. But that’s doing more damage because you first smited yourself.

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Scores

Raptors 114, Magic 113 — Crunch time. 4.8 seconds remaining. Toronto down two with the ball, side out-of-bounds. The Raptors’ best healthy players appeared in this game and did well: R.J. Barrett had 21, Scottie Barnes filled the stat sheet, Jakob Poltl and Immanuel Quickley had impacts. But none of them were on the floor with 4.8 seconds remaining. In the interest of, uh, getting young dudes some reps and also hopefully losing, Darko Rajakovic had Orlando Robinson, Jamal Shead, A.J. Lawson, Jared Rhoden and Ja’Kobe Walter on the floor for the critical possession.

And Ja’Kobe Walter did this.

The Magic are at the point where they can’t even pick up found coins on the sidewalk without tripping over their own shoelaces.

Meanwhile, I’m deeply confused about how the Basketball Gods will see this turn of events for Toronto. That’s a blatant tank attempt … that was not rewarded. Maybe we’re square?

Rockets 102, Pacers 115 — Houston is threatening to mess with my neatly ordered framing of the competitive races remaining in the regular season. The Rockets had a remarkable 24 offensive rebounds but shot so poorly and were so ineffective defensively that it didn’t matter. They even shot 50% from the line!

Through January 5, Houston was No. 3 in the league in defense. Since then, they are No. 16. Indiana’s defense, meanwhile, has gone from No. 22 in the first two months of the season to No. 8 in the last two.

Tyrese Haliburton started too slow to make All-NBA. But he is indeed once again wheeling and dealing.

Warriors 114, Knicks 102 — Great win for the Warriors, even with Karl-Anthony Towns taking a rest night. Jimmy Butler is really an effortless fit. Golden State’s defense has quietly carried them through the post-KD era, and it appears to be in pretty good shape right now. No. 8 for the season.

Stephen Curry was questionable to play. Oh, he played alright.

Bucks 127, Hawks 121

Sixers 112, Timberwolves 126 — Philadelphia hung in there until the fourth quarter, and then gave up the rope. I’m curious when the Sixers shut down Paul George.

Cavaliers 139, Bulls 117 — Cleveland is on their third 11-game win streak of the season. They are three games ahead of where Boston was at this point last season (51-10 vs. 48-13). Seventy wins is on the table. Unlikely — they can only lose two more and make it — but on the table.

Nets 113, Spurs 127 — Devin Vassell is now projected to be the Spurs’ fourth-best player behind Victor Wembanyama, De’Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle. That’s a great spot for the Spurs and for Vassell.

Clippers 117, Suns 119 — Look who’s showing signs of life! It’s not the Clippers.

The raging comeback win for Phoenix against a reeling team they are chasing should be the biggest story out of this game. But Kevin Durant gave Mike Budenholzer a cold shoulder a week after some rumors percolated about Budenholzer and Devin Booker having a tiff, and now we’re doing this.

Durant had some salt for people trying to make it a big deal in the post-game presser.

Phoenix is three games behind Dallas for No. 10 and 3.5 games behind the Clippers for No. 9. We are monitoring the situation.

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Pelicans 115, Lakers 136 — Stack another win for the hottest team in the Western Conference (😔) with an electric offensive performance for Luka Doncic. LeBron hit 50,000 career points (regular season and playoffs combined). Incredible!

Also, Zion Williamson is absolutely going to convince some team to take a big swing this summer. If I ran a team I would absolutely, regrettably be ready to take a big swing.

A very simple cut for Z. Great patience from Trey Murphy III. And then just an unreal, pure athletic moment. Sheesh. (Also not lost on me: good defense on both Luka and LeBron on the next two Lakers possessions, followed by him not crossing halfcourt on offense.)

Schedule

Eight games on Wednesday. All times Eastern. Important games get asterisks.

Blazers at Celtics, 7 (against all odds: *)
Timberwolves at Hornets, 7
Heat at Cavaliers, 7, ESPN
Jazz at Wizards, 7
Mavericks at Bucks, 8
Kings at Nuggets, 9**
Thunder at Grizzlies, 9:30, ESPN**
Pistons at Clippers, 10:30***

Be excellent to each other.