The Mavericks are doing right by Dirk Nowitzki

For the sixth straight summer, the Dallas Mavericks failed to do what they set out to do. Instead of landing a co-star to carry the team through and beyond Dirk Nowitzki’s twilight hours, the Mavericks swapped out Chandler Parsons for Harrison Barnes and tinkered around the edges.

Yet the team is still poised to compete for a playoff spot in the disheveled West and the Mavericks are highly unlikely to face two months of meaningless games as the franchise legend plays out the final two years of his career. Isn’t that something?

In 2015-16, we saw two living legends wrap their careers up very differently. Tim Duncan took on a reduced role for a spectacular team in San Antonio — albeit one that had a spectacular crash in the playoffs. Kobe Bryant stayed fully featured for a team that didn’t play a single meaningful game all season. Two contemporaries of Dirk, going out completely different ways. Neither was perfect.

It appears Nowitzki will instead go out with a major role for his team (like Duncan and Kobe, the only franchise he’s ever known) in somewhat important games. It’s natural for observers to focus only on the top teams as seasons wind down, to believe that only championship contenders experience the thrill of competition down the stretch. But those teams fighting for playoff spots and preferred seeds matter, too. Success isn’t binary. It’s a spectrum.

Dallas is on the right side of that spectrum, and will stay there after this summer. They didn’t land Mike Conley or swing a trade for an All-Star. They got Barnes (after losing Chandler), Andrew Bogut (at the cost of Zaza Pachulia) and, uh, Seth Curry. Otherwise, the Mavericks are essentially bringing back the No. 6 seed. Barring multiple major injuries, the Mavericks will be good enough to avoid playing a wasted season.

There’s little doubt that Nowitzki would prefer to chase another ring, even in a Duncan-like reduced role. But the current incarnation of what surrounds Dirk is much better than what Kobe experienced over his final three years. Bryant deserves at least a modicum of blame for what befell the Lakers. He supposedly alienated Dwight Howard (who has now been alienated by all three franchises for which he’s played, for what that’s worth) and his huge salary did make the cap sheet more difficult to bend for the front office (a front office that gave him all that money when they didn’t have to).

But Kobe isn’t the one who whiffed on a number of free agents, who opted to tank out and rebuild through the draft instead of chasing second-tier free agents like Wesley Matthews, past-his-prime Deron Williams and Pachulia. The Lakers signed less useful free agents, struggled to win 20 games and truly wasted Kobe’s swan song. And yet all that losing left the Lakers stronger than the Mavericks will be three years from now.

Some frame Dallas’ post-2011 failures as a cavalcade of mistakes that failed Dirk. I disagree. The Mavericks have kept Dirk’s teams somewhat competitive at the expense of a long-term future. The idea that any old team can, with enough smarts and effort, land a major free agent is absurd. Dallas has struck out on a parade of major stars. So have most other teams.

There are a limited number of superstars in the NBA, and they rarely change teams. The exceptions: The Warriors landed Kevin Durant, the Spurs got a Duncan heir in LaMarcus Aldridge, the Heat assembled a solar system, the Rockets lured a co-star for James Harden and even the Celtics managed to snag an All-Star. The Mavericks really haven’t had a competitive pitch for players of that high caliber. No offense to Nowitzki, but he’s not enough to counter the allure of the Spurs organization, the allure of South Beach, the allure of a 73-win team or the allure of Boston’s bright-as-the-sun future.

If there’s fault in the Mavericks’ last six years it’s in a dice-roll strategy that refuses to pay a jackpot. But what else are they supposed to do? There’s not some foolproof alternate plan to build a championship contender. You need stars to get there, and the Mavericks haven’t drafted well enough to get a Kawhi Leonard or high enough to land a Steph Curry and a Klay Thompson. So you do it through trades (Dallas has few tradeable assets, and blew those on Rajon Rondo) or free agency. That’s the door Dallas has chosen; it’s been locked time after time. Fault the plan all you want, but there is no alternative for this franchise in this position. There is no magic path to elite status. It’s either this, or tanking out.

The Mavericks have elected to avoid the bottom until Dirk is gone. That’s commendable. What Dallas has been unable to provide Nowitzki in playoff glory, it is providing in continued relevance of a sort. A late-season playoff chase like the thrilling edition the Mavericks experienced last year isn’t quite the Western Conference Finals, but it’s better than 10-game losing streak, isn’t it?

The Mavericks are disregarding the health of their franchise post-Dirk to keep things interesting for Dirk while he’s still around. They wish it were different, that they could land one of these stars to help push Dallas onto a higher plane of existence. But it’s not, so this will have to do. It could be worse.