Ever since February 1, the Dallas Mavericks have looked much different. So much so that they were almost unrecognizable at the end of the season due to many changes on the roster as well as injuries.
This is the day that Nico Harrison decided to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis, and seemingly every day after that for two months, there was new news emerging about the trade that had Mavericks fans furious. There were constant leaks from the Mavericks organization about having concerns about his conditioning, leadership, and other factors, and all of these leaks even led Kyrie Irving to speak out against them.
The fallout of the Doncic trade was a nightmare in Dallas, and there have already been some major changes this offseason when it comes to Harrison’s staff.
Earlier this week, Harrison decided to fire athletic performance director Keith Belton and head athletic trainer Dionne Calhoun. Calhoun had been with the Mavericks for 21 years and worked alongside Casey Smith while Belton was fired after his first season with the team.
Belton’s time in Dallas was rough, to say the least, as he became notorious for putting Dereck Lively II through an intense workout when he unknowingly had a stress fracture in his ankle. The mishandling of the Lively II situation almost led to a physical altercation at the practice facility, and Harrison decided to cut ties with him early this offseason.
With the Mavericks making these two moves, it has brought back a quiet aspect of the Doncic trade that makes way more sense now.
For Doncic’s side.
After the trade, reports surfaced that Doncic’s body team and the Mavericks’ training staff weren’t fully aligned. Doncic’s team and the Mavericks staff sometimes disagreed on ways to handle Doncic and his injuries, with one of the most well-known ways being his recovery from his calf strain that he suffered on Christmas Day.
The Mavericks staff thought that Doncic could have returned in two or three weeks, while Doncic’s team eyed a lengthier recovery process, saying that he needed to be out for six weeks and return in early February. The Mavericks ultimately went with Doncic’s team’s way, allowing him to rehab until about February 8, but it was clear they thought he should have returned sooner.
Another situation between Doncic’s body team and the Mavericks emerged when Harrison wanted Doncic to travel with the team on a five-game road trip while going through his recovery from the aforementioned calf strain. Doncic’s team objected, with the reasoning being they’d rather stay in Dallas to have access to the Mavericks’ practice facility and recovery equipment rather than having to book gyms on the road. Doncic was doing two lengthy basketball workouts per day, and his team wanted him to remain home during this time.
Harrison insisted that Doncic traveled with the team, as he wanted him to scrimmage with his teammates, and once again, Doncic’s team felt differently. They said that Doncic would happily practice with the Texas Legends, but that clearly wasn’t good enough for Harrison, as the Mavs traded him before the team returned home from that five-game road trip.
This isn’t to say that Doncic’s camp listening to Harrison and the Mavericks’ training and medical staff would have changed anything when it comes to the trade with the Lakers, but everything that has come out since the trade proves that Doncic and his team were actually right. They had every reason not to trust the Mavericks staff, as they went through one of the most injury-plagued seasons in franchise history, and the medical staff’s mismanagement of multiple injuries directly led to this misfortune.
Some unluckiness played a part in the Mavericks’ medical disaster, but some of these injuries and reaggravations were preventable.
Players like Jaden Hardy and P.J. Washington were constantly re-injuring their aggravated ankle sprains, and even Washington himself admitted that he returned too soon from one of his absences. Davis also rushed back from his abdominal injury to make his Mavericks debut, and this led to him suffering an adductor strain in the third quarter of that game and being out for the next 18 games.
This medical and training staff became known for giving eager timelines to the players and their camps when it comes to return dates, and Doncic and his camp had every right to be skeptical about listening to them. It was clear that there were serious problems within Dallas’ medical department, but this didn’t stop Harrison from defending them during the closed-door press conference a few weeks ago.
He said that the staff they brought on was “better” than the previous staff that included the remarkable Casey Smith, and that proved to be wrong, as he fired multiple members of the training staff this week.
Doncic and his body team’s lack of trust in the Mavericks’ medical and training team’s ways was just justified even more, and as time goes on, this move only looks worse for Harrison and the Mavs.
