The Fumble: Dallas Mavericks' Sad Future, LeBron James' GOAT Status Debate After 50,000 Points, & More

With just a quarter of the 2024-2025 NBA season, remaining teams are beginning to surpass expectations or fall to the waistside.

That couldn’t be more apparent than the Dallas Mavericks, whose playoff hopes have dwindled over the past few weeks.

It started when they traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, getting Anthony Davis in return. Though Davis looked promising, the injury-prone big man got hurt in his Mavs debut, and now Kyrie Irving’s out for the rest of the season after suffering a torn ACL.

Our cohosts, Rodney Rikai and Samaria Terry, discuss the Dallas Mavericks’ future and whether they have any staying power after last season’s Finals appearance.

Rikai laments how bad the Doncic-Davis trade is—comparing it to when Rudy Gobert went to the Minnesota Timberwolves—because of how healthy Doncic has looked as a Laker.

“You leverage the entire future of your franchise for the next decade and a half for two guys who are often injured. That’s just not a smart business decision,” Rikai explains. “Like you had somebody that you could really put the franchise on his back. You had the same approach with Dirk Nowitzki who was in Dallas for 20 years and helped you win one championship. I don’t understand why you don’t replicate that.”

While Irving’s season is over, his former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate LeBron James is just beginning to heat up. The Lakers had an eight-game winning streak thanks to Doncic’s addition, and en route, James became the first player to score 50,000 points in the NBA. It’s staggeringly more than Michael Jordan‘s 32,292, which begs whether the GOAT debate is swaying away from him.

For our special guest this episode, we spoke with brothers Preston and Derek Dark about their documentary Blue Chippers: Next Man Up, which digs deep into the world of college football recruitment.

Check out the latest episode of The Fumble above.