The Dallas Mavericks sparked outrage when they decided to trade generational superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, but that is far from the only questionable move the team has made in recent seasons.
Outside of general manager Nico Harrison trading Doncic and Jalen Brunson during his reign as GM of the Mavericks, Harrison has also made changes to the team's health and performance staff. Harrison has fired three popular and well-respected staffers over the last two offseasons, including Casey Smith, who spent nearly two decades with the Mavericks but was fired after Harrison was reportedly "threatened" by his impact on the franchise, per ESPN's Tim MacMahon. The firing of Smith has also contributed to Dirk Nowitzki distancing himself from the franchise.
Harrison would replace these staffers by hiring director of player health and performance Johann Bilsborough and athletic performance director Keith Belton, but Bilsborough and Belton often do not get along and are not on the same page, according to the report. This has come at a price, as their differing approaches have reportedly contributed to the Mavericks' ongoing injury issues this season with multiple players re-injuring themselves after returning to play.
"It's hard to say what a guy should have for a contact injury, but how fast they come back or how likely they are to re-injure it, that's another story," a team source told ESPN, via MacMahon. "How do you get me back? How well am I when I got back? That's the medical staff and the [performance] staff.
"I think that is where you really see the effect of the dysfunction, but not just within the medical department, but the pressure to tread water until other guys come back so that you can prove what decisions [the front office] made up until this point were the right ones," another team source added to MacMahon. "... I think there's a dysfunction on an organization level because of the trade itself."
Disputes between Bilsborough and Belton became especially heated when Belton was leading Derek Lively II through a plan to return to playing after suffering a right ankle sprain. Bilsborough was concerned, and sent Lively for a CT scan, showing that Lively actually had a stress fracture in his ankle, not just a sprain, which led to an intense confrontation between Bilsborough and Belton.
Along with the mishandling of Lively's injury, Anthony Davis returned to play too soon when he arrived in Dallas, causing him to miss even more time with his adductor injury after suffering a setback in his Mavericks debut.
The issues on the Mavericks clearly go beyond just trading Doncic, and if they persist, could have detrimental impacts on the team going forward.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Mavericks' Dysfunction Reportedly Contributed to Injury Issues This Season.
