Almost unbelievably, the Mavericks had not won a home game in 58 days, but if you didn’t know that, you wouldn’t have guessed it from Saturday night’s atmosphere in American Airlines Center.
Nearly all 19,200 seats were filled by tipoff. From start to finish, there was no indication of March Sadness as the Mavericks, losers of 10 straight home games, battled the Los Angeles Clippers.
Alas for the fans, Dallas again fell, 138-131 in overtime, extending a home drought that now exceeds two months to a January 22 win over Golden State. But this night again highlighted the largely unsung, most pleasant surprise of this 23-48 Dallas season.
Mavericks fans, take a bow.
Mavericks
Gut punches continue, but fans keep coming back. The 11 straight home losses are the most since Dallas lost 12 straight near the end of the 1993-94 season. Of course, that season’s Mavericks were so woeful that they opened the year with 19 straight home defeats.
The following year, a rookie point guard named Jason Kidd helped re-energize the fan base.
“I think we have the best sports fans, supportive,” now-Mavericks coach Kidd said, after his team got outscored 16-9 in overtime.
“The fans still love their Mavs,” he added. “And these Mavs players today are playing hard and understanding they’re not playing as if their record is 20-something and 50. That just shows the character in that locker room, and the character of our fans.
“They’re smart basketball fans. And they understand the situation.”
Along with home losses, this year’s fans must endure ex-Maverick Luka Doncic’s recent burst of extra brilliance for the Lakers. Still, fans keep showing up to AAC — slightly fewer in number, but loyal and raucous, nonetheless.
On Saturday they again celebrated the little moments and, above all, the continued development of 19-year-old rookie sensation Cooper Flagg, who finished with 18 points, nine rebounds and seven assists while often matched against Clippers veteran star Kawhi Leonard.
With the score tied at 122 after a Leonard shot in the lane with 19 seconds left in regulation, Flagg missed a potential game-winning 22-footer with 1.2 seconds left.
“The fans are still showing up for us,” Flagg said. “Obviously we haven’t given them a lot to show up for every single night, and haven’t given them the wins, but I still have loved the support that they’ve given me. Given the team.
“We just have to do a better job of giving them things to be happy for.”
Hope and excitement. Former Mavericks coach and Naismith Hall of Famer Don Nelson often said those are the most important intangibles for franchises to sell to fans – and Mavericks fans are buying, despite what some of this season’s attendance figures indicate.
It’s all in how closely you look into the numbers.
From the 2002-2003 season, Dallas’ second in American Airlines Center, through last season, the Mavericks franchise reported sellouts for all home games except for the COVID-19 season of 2020-21.
This season? In 35 home games entering Saturday, the Mavericks had recorded 18 sellouts and 17 non-sellouts – with 10 games in which attendance dropped below 19,000.
But in past seasons under former team governor Mark Cuban, the Mavericks counted tickets sold – and in some cases given away – rather than actual fans in the building.
“It was a philosophy that we don’t share, that going forward we were going to be much more transparent about what’s going on,” Mavericks second-year CEO Rick Welts told The Dallas Morning News, treading delicately around the topic of Dallas’ two-decade-plus sellout streak.
“Whenever the sellout streak ended,” Welts said, “we officially put it to bed, just to say we’re not going to do that going forward.”
Certainly the Mavericks still wish they were filling the building to the brim every home game. Yet the reality is their season-long home attendance entering Saturday – 673,195 – ranked sixth in the NBA, and their average home attendance (19,234) was just above AAC’s listed capacity of 19,200.
“I’m feeling great about it,” Welts said. “We’re giving away a lot fewer tickets than historically we’ve given away before.”
The past five weeks have brought more positive news. Season-ticket-holders were informed of their renewal phase on Feb. 16, with an auto-pay/renewal deadline of March 16.
Welts said 87% of 2025-26 season ticket holders have renewed for 2026-2027, and that the number certainly will climb to 90% in the coming days.
“I’m ecstatic about that,” Welts said. “I think that tells me people see the future in a way that we hope they see the future.”
It certainly didn’t hurt that the franchise elected to freeze season-ticket prices for 2026-27, after increases each of the past two seasons.
Welts described what he believed might be a tense meeting with Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont. Using data from secondary market resales, Mavericks officials had determined that roughly 10% of American Airlines Center’s tickets were priced at under-market rates.
“We went to Patrick with some very well thought out selective price increases,” Welts said. “He shut it down in the first five minutes of the conversation. In so many words he said, ‘Look, we didn’t deliver the team we expected to put on the court this year and we’re not gonna raise prices for that.’
“I’ve never experienced anything like that before,” added Welts, who has been an NBA executive for nearly a half-century.
Still, when season-ticket renewals went out, Welts thought: “It was a big ‘I’m not sure.’ ”
The Mavericks believe they pulled a major hiring coup two months ago when they lured away from the San Diego Padres Curt Waugh, now Dallas’ senior vice president of sales.
Welts called Waugh a superstar and gives him some credit for the team’s strong ticket-renewal rate. Still …
“At the end of the day, it’s fans who decide they want to be in or don’t want to be in,” Welts said. “To be 87% on the way to 90% to say we’re in for next season is a really good number for any team.”
Luka Doncic reportedly seeking dismissal of child support petition filed by ex-fiancée
The report comes after Doncic said he ended his yearslong engagement to Anamaria Goltes and that he would “fight” to be with his daughters.
Mavericks 2026 tank tracker: What are Dallas’ chances of landing No. 1 pick in NBA draft?
Could the Mavericks’ lottery luck from 2025 carry into the new year?
Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.