The Dallas Mavericks delivered an update on their trio of injured big men on Friday, most notably All-Star forward Anthony Davis.

Following a recent re-evaluation, the Mavericks reported that Davis, who has missed the last ten games due to a left adductor injury, is getting better every day and is now cleared to make more dynamic on-court moves.

Sophomore center Dereck Lively II is progressing in his rehabilitation and is able to participate in individual court workouts.

He was sidelined for the last 23 games because of a right ankle stress fracture. No timelines were given for either Davis or Lively, who will be evaluated weekly.

The update for Mavericks backup center Daniel Gafford, who has missed the last nine games with a right knee sprain, was vague.

The team says he’s showing progress and will be evaluated in two weeks.

It is unknown if the Mavericks’ will get any of their big guys back before the end of the regular season in five weeks.

Dallas (32-31) has 19 games remaining before the regular season finale on April 13 against the Memphis Grizzlies, who visit American Airlines Center on Friday night.

 

 

 

 

 

The Dallas Mavericks already were the laughingstock of the NBA after trading superstar guard Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers ahead of the Feb. 6 trade deadline. Fresh off a trip to the NBA Finals, they drastically shortened their championship window by trading him for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and the Lakers’ unprotected 2029 first-round pick.

 

That window might have slammed shut Monday night. Star guard Kyrie Irving tore his ACL in the first quarter of the Mavericks’ loss to the Sacramento Kings, ending his season and leaving his availability for the start of the 2025-26 campaign in doubt.

 

The Mavericks have already been without Davis for the past few weeks due to an adductor strain that he suffered in his Dallas debut. During an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday, ESPN’s Shams Charania said Davis and his representatives will likely “have some very hard conversations” about whether he should return this season following Irving’s injury.

 

“It’s not out of the realm of possibility that one game was the last time we’re gonna see Anthony Davis this season,” Charania added.

 

Amidst those injury issues, the Mavericks have fallen to the No. 10 seed in the Western Conference. They have a three-game lead over the Phoenix Suns and Portland Trail Blazers for the final spot in the West play-in tournament with 20 games to go, but Irving’s injury effectively ends their chances of going on a miraculous playoff run.

 

It also further underscores the folly of the Dončić trade in the first place.

 

Closing Windows

After news of the Dončić trade broke, the Mavericks immediately went into damage-control mode. They began leaking about their concerns with his conditioning and work ethic, but they also noted how Davis’ defensive acumen could give them more two-way potential.

 

“I believe that defense wins championships,” Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison told ESPN’s Tim MacMahon at the time of the trade. “I believe that getting an All-Defensive center and an All-NBA player with a defensive mindset gives us a better chance. We’re built to win now and in the future.”

 

That last sentence from Harrison is aging like spoiled milk.

 

Davis did look incredible during his lone game with the Mavericks thus far, finishing with 26 points, 16 rebounds and seven assists in 31 minutes before departing with his adductor injury. However, it’s not like he’s been a beacon of health in recent years. Davis did play 76 games last season, but he missed at least 26 games in each of the preceding three years.

 

Davis and Irving turn 32 and 33, respectively, later in March. Dončić just turned 26 at the end of February. Had the Mavericks built well around him, he could have kept them in championship contention for the next decade. Instead, they’ve now consolidated their window to a much shorter timetable.

 

“The future to me is 3-4 years from now,” Harrison said at his press conference after the trade. “The future 10 years from now, they’ll probably bury me and [head coach Jason Kidd]

 

by then. Or we’ll bury ourselves.”

Irving’s injury ends the Mavericks’ title hopes this year. They’ll now be banking on a 34-year-old Irving (who’ll be fresh off an ACL tear) and a 33-year-old Davis to stay healthy for the 2026 playoffs. That’s the best-case scenario.

 

The worst-case scenario? The injury bug continues to plague the Mavs next season, while Dončić and LeBron James cement the Lakers as one of the title favorites in the West.

 

The Mavs’ Other Unforced Error

The Dončić deal wasn’t the only unforced error that the Mavericks made ahead of the Feb. 6 trade deadline. They also shipped Quentin Grimes and a 2025 second-round pick to the Philadelphia 76ers for veteran forward Caleb Martin, who still has yet to suit up for them because of a hip injury. (The Sixers had to throw in a 2030 second-round pick to push the deal over the finish line once the Mavericks identified that hip issue during his physical.)

 

As NBA salary-cap expert Yossi Gozlan noted Tuesday, that trade further handcuffed the Mavericks this season.

 

With Irving done for the year, the Mavericks are now woefully devoid of point guards. They’ll be forced to rely on Spencer Dinwiddie and Dante Exum as their primary ball-handlers moving forward, as they’re hard-capped at the $178.1 million first apron and sit less than $55,000 below that line. They can’t afford to sign anyone else, not even to a rest-of-season veteran-minimum contract.

 

Meanwhile, Grimes had a career-high 44-point eruption in the Sixers’ surprise win over the Golden State Warriors this past Saturday, and he finished with 30 points on 12-of-18 shooting in their short-handed loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday. Sandwiched between those two explosive scoring efforts was a well-rounded 14-point, nine-assist, six-rebound effort against the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday.

 

 

 

“Sometimes you end up on the defeated side of the endeavor.”

 

Luke Kornet hilariously breaks down Quentin Grimes’ poster with Abby Chin

 

The Dallas Mavericks fell to the Boston Celtics in a 2024 NBA Finals rematch Saturday at the American Airlines Center, but Mavs guard Quentin Grimes did produce one of the best dunks of the season.

 

And unfortunately for Celtics backup center Luke Kornet, it came at his expense.

 

Grimes posterized Kornet with a thunderous one-handed slam in the final 30 seconds of the third quarter. The dunk brought the crowd, and the Mavericks bench, to their feet.

 

It was actually the NBA’s highest-graded dunk of the season so far.

 

What does Kornet think of the dunk and its high score? He responded with typical Kornet humor during an exclusive interview with NBC Sports Boston’s Abby Chin.

 

“Obviously, dunk score is a very crucial element to our game,” Kornet said with a smile, as seen in the video player above.

 

“What do I think (of the dunk)? You know, they say humility is the virtue of knowing God is the author of all good things, and he made Quentin Grimes well. Because that boy — he’s got some quick twitch, as they say. Frankly, when someone has an opportunity to display their athleticism, it’s on me to try to combat that, and sometimes you end up on the defeated side of the endeavor and you have to willfully accept it.

 

So kudos to him. It was a great jump, great dunk.”

 

 

Mazzulla praises ‘aggressive’ D-White after bounce-back performance

The Celtics were still up by 20 points after the dunk, but Kornet isn’t the type of person to respond by pointing to the scoreboard.

 

“Yeah, but the thing is, you don’t want to kind of go the whole ‘scoreboard’ route because then it undermines like, hey, no, that happened. You don’t want to try to back out of it,” Kornet explained. “You accept the things that happen.”

 

Kornet deserves credit for at least challenging the dunk. A lot of players in his situation would have made what is commonly referred to as a “business decision” and just let Grimes dunk without any resistance.

 

“The business decision is always to do the thing that you think helps the other team score less and your team score more,” Kornet said. “I was a little late on that one, which happens. And then he got to my body before I was able to kind of get to his, which was sort of the problem.

 

“I mean, you can break it down in a lot of ways. The dunk score obviously shows all this.”

 

Kornet played well against the Mavericks with two points, five assists and a team-high 10 rebounds during the Celtics’ 122-107 win in Dallas.

 

Next up for the Celtics is a matchup with the Rockets on Monday night at TD Garden. The C’s beat the Rockets in Houston on Jan. 3. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Boston.