Mavericks lose by 30 in first game since Kyrie Irving ACL tear

In the grand scheme of sports disasters, collapses, mistakes, oversights and peculiarities, the past month or so of the Dallas Mavericks stands out. It didn't get better on Wednesday.

A month after trading Luka Dončić, three weeks after losing Anthony Davis to injury and a day after losing Kyrie Irving for the season, the Mavericks lost 137-107 to the Milwaukee Bucks. It was their fourth loss in their past five games.

There was no drama to the loss. Dallas was down double-digits by the end of the first quarter, down by 19 at halftime and down by as much as 35 in the second half. Klay Thompson, the lineup's last remaining former All-Star, led the Mavs with 28 points, but that wasn't enough to make up for dueling 30-point games from Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard.

Not only were they missing Davis and Irving, nearly their entire big-man rotation was out hurt, among other players. In his fifth game since returning from a hip strain, Dwight Powell got his second start of the season at center and scored six points.

The Bucks shot 58.6% from the field, 45.7% from 3-point range, and outrebounded the Mavs, 60-38.

In theory, the Mavericks will get better once Davis comes back. Part of the reason they traded for the former Los Angeles Lakers champion, besides apparently losing faith in Dončić, was to shore up their defense while adding a versatile big man on offense.

That plan was built on Irving still being around, though, and it's not even a given he'll be ready for the start of next season. So the Mavericks are left with a massively shorthanded roster and a 32-31 record, good enough for 10th place in the West. But there is little reason to expect them to do anything with a play-in spot.

With 19 games left in the season, the Mavericks hold a 2.5-game lead over the Phoenix Suns and are fully incentivized to lose for the rest of the season, with the hope that their win-now core will actually win next season. It's an unenviable position, created by a combination of bad decisions, bad luck and basic logic.