The NBA Investigating The Mavs Because They "Embarrassed" The League And Made A "Mockery" Of The Play In Tournament Feels A Little Hypocritical

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After Mark Cuban and the Mavs decided to give a giant middle finger to Adam Silver and the NBA but flat out quitting on the season to protect his top 10 pick, that apparently didn't sit too well with the league

Right away this didn't exactly pass the smell test. Is what the Mavs did embarrassing? Of course. When you go all in and trade for Kyrie and employ Luka Doncic, you should probably try and win as much as possible, especially when you were still mathematically alive for the Play In. But does what they did deserve "an investigation"? I'm not so sure why it would. Hey Adam Silver guess what? NBA teams tank.

You could tell this was maybe a little more personal between Cuban and Silver, and that's becoming more and more clear

I don't want to make excuses for Cuban and the Mavs, they made their own bed and now have to deal with that shitstorm. My question is more about the reasoning that this investigation is happening.

"The Mavs embarrassed the league and made a mockery of the play in tournament"

So let me ask you this Adam Silver. Is there going to be a similar investigation into the Utah Jazz??

On March 21st, the Jazz were in 10th place. They had just won 4 of 5 games and it was looking like they were headed to the Play In. So what did Danny Ainge do? He started shutting everyone down immediately. As a result, this was their finish

Is that not embarrassing the league and making a mockery of the Play In? How is it any different than what the Mavs did other than they decided to punt on the season a few weeks earlier?

How about the Blazers? They were still in the Play In race as we entered March. Once it became clear that winning would do more harm than good, they shut Dame down on 3/24. This was their finish

Is that not embarrassing the league or making a mockery of the Play In? 

Not only that but in the East, the Pacers were in 11th as late as 3/24, right on the heels of the Bulls for 10th. They immediately shut down Haliburton and others, ending their year by losing 5 of their last 7 games. Seems like a common theme!

Nobody is debating the idea that what the Mavs did is soft as hell, but it is within the rules that Adam Silver created. That's why this feels more personal than anything else. Between the protest bullshit and all his prior run-ins with the league, I'm sure Silver is just tied of Mark Cuban and sees this as a way to maybe fine him or something. You can't seriously penalize a team for doing the exact same shit a bunch of other teams also did. How does that make any sense?

The Mavs deserve to be made fun of, dragged online/on TV all that stuff. But that's pretty much it. Who knows, maybe they'll have to pay for this when it comes to keeping Luka around in the near future. But if the league comes down on them with any sort of real punishment or fine, they are opening up a can of worms they in no way want. They've already tried to stop tanking, and it has failed miserably. The flattening of the lottery odds didn't do much, and it's clear the Play In still isn't enough for teams on the fringe to give a shit in the final weeks of the season.

That's not a Mavs problem, that's an NBA problem.