So me and Charles Barkley call the Dallas Mavericks the best team in the NBA, but when I come back from vacation the whole thing's in shambles.

What the what?!

I believe when I left they were 23-5 and had just completed a season sweep of the Miami Heat.

Now? Entering tonight's home game against Portland, they've lost three of four and are without Dirk Nowitzki again and Caron Butler, possibly forever.

UPDATE: It's surgery. It ain't good. It's over. And from what I'm hearing, pencil in the Sixers' Andre Iguodala as a possible replacement.

Things were rolling along smoothly at Oklahoma City when Nowitzki awkwardly stubbed his toe and twisted his knee. But in Milwaukee, while watching TCU beat Wisconsin, I also saw Butler crumple to the court with an ugly injury.

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Mavs still haven't released the results of tests on Butler's right knee, but it looks and smells like a torn - or at least partially torn - patella tendon. Ouch. That not days or weeks, it's months. It may, in fact, be the season.

Butler, is a free agent after the season.

Just when the Mavs were re-establishing some cred and anxiously awaiting the return of Roddy Beaubois to climb another level, shit happens. Nowitzki is still hobbling, Beaubois is still a month away and without Butler, the Mavs' momentum - if not their season - has come to a screeching halt.

Somebody wanna fess up to wishing failure on my team?