Behind California, Texas is the US state with the most NBA franchises. If the four Californian teams (Clippers, Lakers, Warriors and Kings) are guaranteed to make the playoffs, or at least the play-in, Texas knows the opposite dynamic.
With the same record of 21 wins for 60 losses, the Spurs and the Rockets will only “fight” on this last day of the regular season for one thing: not to finish last in their conference.
If their current situation was more or less predictable at the start of the season, the same cannot be said for the Mavs, defending conference finalists. Despite the talent of Luka Doncic and the arrival of Kyrie Irving during the exercise, the Dallas-based franchise will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2019.
As a result, Texas will have no playoff representatives this year. And this, for the first time since the 1980-81 season, the year of creation of the youngest of the three franchises in question, the Mavs.
The Spurs, Rockets and Mavericks have been eliminated from postseason contention.
This is the first time all 3 Texas teams will miss the playoffs in the same season since the Mavericks became a franchise in 1980-81. pic.twitter.com/vHFnaG05Dj
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 8, 2023
It should be noted that over the past four decades, the three teams have been widely represented in the playoffs. In 1984, the Mavs had celebrated their first qualification while Spurs and Rockets had failed to qualify. Apart from this kind of exception, Texas has regularly had two or even three representatives.
Spurs’ streak of 22 consecutive qualifications, between 1998 and 2019, helped in this direction. However, you have to go back to 2016 to see Rockets, Spurs and Mavs participate in the same edition of the playoffs. For the past two years, with the ongoing reconstruction in San Antonio and the departure of James Harden from Houston, Dallas was the only Texas club in the playoffs.
