Dallas Mavericks

Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving provided an update on his recovery from a torn left ACL that ended his 2024-25 season.

On Friday, Irving revealed that his rehab is "going really well" in a post on X.

The nine-time All-Star sustained the injury in the first quarter of Dallas' 122-98 defeat at the hands of the Sacramento Kings on March 3 and eventually underwent surgery to repair his ACL on March 26.

ESPN's Shams Charania reported that there is "optimism" that Irving will be able to suit up again around Jan. 2026.

The veteran point guard will be returning to a Mavericks roster that'll look vastly different compared to the start of the 2024-25 season, as the front office made the surprising decision to trade Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for a package centered around Anthony Davis on Feb. 2.

Irving and Davis only shared the floor in one game following the trade as both players dealt with injuries, combining to score 39 points in a 116-105 win over the Houston Rockets on Feb. 8.

The Mavericks finished the season with a 39-43 record before they were eliminated in the play-in tournament.

Irving's future with the team isn't guaranteed, as he owns a $43.9 million player option for his 2025-26 campaign.

Still, Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison told reporters that "we fully expect to have Kyrie back with us next year" and there's also belief around the league that he'll stay with the organization.

Irving averaged 24.7 points, 4.8 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game on 47.3/40.1/91.6 shooting splits in 50 appearances during the 2024-25 season.

Dallas Mavericks star forward Anthony Davis won't need surgery on his adductor injury this summer, general manager Nico Harrison told reporters on Monday.

After being acquired from the Los Angeles Lakers as part of the blockbuster Luka Dončić trade, Davis suffered a left adductor strain in his Mavs debut on Feb. 8 and missed the next six weeks.

Davis made his return on March 24, and in his fifth game back on the court on April 2, he was inadvertently elbowed in his right eye by teammate Daniel Gafford. However, he managed to return and help lead the Mavs to a win over the Atlanta Hawks, finishing with 34 points and scoring the go-ahead basket with 3.4 seconds left in the game.

In nine games in a Dallas uniform, Davis averaged 20.0 points, 10.1 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 2.2 blocks while still working his way back to his old form. He averaged 25.7 points, 11.9 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 1.3 steals and 2.1 blocks in 42 games in Los Angeles this season. Dallas' season came to an end with a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in the play-in tournament.

Davis will now be the focal point of the Mavs after the team shipped away Dončić and star point guard Kyrie Irving recovers from a torn ACL.

Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison feels that Los Angeles Lakers star guard Luka Doncic's recent comments about him were misguided, and he agrees that both sides should move on.

"I feel the same way he does, like I’ve actually never spoken ill of Luka at all, and I'm just ready to move on with this team that we have," Harrison told reporters on Monday when asked about Doncic's comments.

Per ESPN's Dave McMenamin, Doncic told Malika Andrews in a recent sit-down interview that he hasn't spoken to Harrison since being traded from the Mavs to the Lakers. However, Harrison's comments in the aftermath of the deal haven't sat right with him.

"It's just sad the way he's talking right now," Doncic said of Harrison. "I never say anything bad about him, and I just want to move on. The fans, my ex-teammates, I'll always keep at heart. It's time for me to move on from there."

Doncic was referring to Harrison saying that he has "no regrets" about the trade and repeating that his motivation behind the deal was that "defense wins championships," indicating that the 26-year-old struggled on that side of the ball. There were also reports that Harrison and the Mavs organization had concerns over Doncic's conditioning and dietary habits.

"I mean, it's painful, depending on how you take it," Doncic said of the criticisms by his former team. "It mostly came from Dallas, so I didn't want to talk back. But I don't really read that much stuff. I'm just trying to focus on my journey."

Doncic is hoping to help lead the Lakers past the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the playoffs, while the Mavs will be watching the postseason from home after losing to the Memphis Grizzlies in the play-in tournament. It seems like it's time for both sides to heed their word and move on from the trade fallout.

Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison gave his thoughts on fans chanting for him to be fired during games following the blockbuster trade involving superstar Luka Dončić.

"When you have 20,000 people in the stadium chanting 'Fire Nico' you really feel it," Harrison told reporters on Monday. "I use the word awesome, but not in a positive way. You can really feel how they feel."

"I did know that Luka was important to the fanbase," he added. "I didn't quite know to what level."

Fans have chanted the message at various home games following the shocking trade with the Los Angeles Lakers and were especially boisterous when Dončić made his return to the American Airlines Center on April 9.

The Mavericks received Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick from the Lakers in exchange for the five-time All-Star.

Dončić was also displeased by the swap, telling ESPN's Malika Andrews that he threw his phone and broke it after he was informed that he was getting traded.

He specifically expressed his gratitude to Mavericks fans in a statement posted on social media following the deal.

"The love and support you all have given me is more than I could have ever dreamed of," Dončić wrote in the statement. "For a young kid from Slovenia coming to the U.S. for the first time, you made North Texas feel like home."

Dončić quickly developed into one of the league's top offensive players after Dallas added him in the 2018 NBA draft.

He ended his Mavericks career with averages of 28.6 points, 8.7 rebounds and 8.3 assists per game while shooting 47.0 percent from the field and 34.8 percent from behind the arc. Dončić sits at No. 6 on the organization's all-time scoring list.

He helped lead the Mavericks to the playoffs in four separate seasons during his tenure with the team, which included a 2024 NBA Finals appearance.

Dallas owned a 26-23 record during its 2024-25 campaign prior to the trade, but it ended the year with a 13-20 finish before falling to the Memphis Grizzlies in the play-in tournament.

Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison reiterated how improving the team's defense was a major objective behind trading away franchise cornerstone Luka Dončić.

Harrison told reporters Monday the Mavs want defense to be "our calling card," so the franchise "jumped" at the chance to acquire Anthony Davis from the Los Angeles Lakers.

Harrison is nothing if not consistent.

From the moment the Luka trade came together, he leaned on the old adage that defense wins championships. The message remained the same after Dallas posted a losing record (39-43) and failed to advance past the Play-In Tournament.

Harrison also stood by the haul the Mavs received for Dončić.

"If you don't value AD as an All-NBA player, an All-Defensive player, then you're not going to like the trade," he said Monday. "We targeted AD, but if you don't like him, then there's nothing else we get that's going to make you excited."

Granted, those remarks seemed to imply that moving Dončić was a fait accompli or something forced upon the organization.

ESPN's Tim MacMahon filed a new report Monday laying out what became a "frigid dynamic" between Dončić's representatives and Harrison. Staffing decisions made by the front office, most notably dismissing director of health and performance Casey Smith, didn't go down well with the five-time All-Star.

Eventually, Harrison came to the determination Dončić needed to go.

Thanks to earlier reporting, we know what happened from there. Per MacMahon and colleague Ramona Shelburne, Harrison identified Davis as his preferred target and met with Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka in early January to get the wheels in motion.

The early returns have been a disaster.

Even leaving aside the overwhelmingly negative fan reaction, Davis suffered an adductor strain that limited him to nine appearances with the team. Kyrie Irving's torn ACL further clouds Dallas' short-term future.

Harrison knows his job security and overall legacy with the Mavs rest on the Luka trade being a success. That means he has to keep arguing for it on the merits, no matter the outside reaction.

However, continuing to say "defense wins championships" and asserting Dallas got the best return possible, despite not opening the bidding to other teams, will fall on deaf ears right now.

Dallas Mavericks fans have been calling for general manager Nico Harrison to be fired for months, but he believes he's done enough to deserve to keep his job.

"I think I've done a really good job here, and I don't think I can be judged by the injuries this year," he told reporters Monday when asked why he shouldn't be fired. "You have to judge the totality from beginning to end."

Harrison's self-assessment likely will do very little to appease Mavs fans. After he pulled off one of the most shocking trades in NBA history by sending star guard Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas endured a run of misfortune that only added to fans' anger.

Star forward Anthony Davis, who headlined the return package from the Lakers for Doncic, missed six weeks after suffering an adductor strain in his Mavs debut. Star point guard Kyrie Irving suffered a season-ending torn ACL that will likely force him to miss a significant chunk of the 2025-26 campaign as well. Key players like centers Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II missed time throughout the year as Dallas struggled to put together a consistent lineup.

The mounting injuries led to a disappointing 39-43 finish to the regular season for the Mavs. The team fell short of the playoffs after losing to the Memphis Grizzlies in the play-in tournament.

Still, Harrison maintained his confidence that he's leading the franchise in the right direction. He declared that Dallas will be a title contender when the team gets fully healthy.

"I think I have a really good working relationship with Patrick [Dumont]. I think you add in Rick [Welts], the leadership that we have is really elite," he said. "You'll see next year when our team comes back, we're gonna be competing for a championship."

Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison and star guard Luka Dončić's camp reportedly had disagreements over his injury recovery timeline before he was shockingly traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.

ESPN's Tim MacMahon revealed new details behind Harrison's decision, reporting that sources said the GM "griped that Dončić was holding the team hostage" amid his recovery from a left calf strain.

At the time of the injury on Christmas Day, it was Dončić's fourth calf strain in a 28-month span, and MacMahon reported that "tension between the sides soared." Dončić's camp reportedly felt he returned too quickly from a left heel bruise suffered on Dec. 15 and had been playing on his toes to reduce his discomfort, but Harrison "blamed poor conditioning."

Sources also told MacMahon that Mavs director of player health and performance Johann Bilsborough felt the injury would only sideline Dončić for "two or three weeks," but Dončić's camp "adamantly stated that he needed to sit out six weeks." The team acquiesced and targeted a return date of Feb. 8.

"That deepened the divide," a source told MacMahon.

Things reached a boiling point when another "major disagreement emerged between the sides" after Dončić refused Harrison's request to join the team for a five-game road trip leading up to his return date. Dončić's camp felt he should remain in Dallas to continue his recovery, while Harrison insisted that he needed to scrimmage. Following this back-and-forth, the two sides lost communication.

"The next time Dončić's camp heard from Harrison, it was to share the news that the trade he'd been secretly negotiating for weeks with the Lakers was finalized," MacMahon stated.

Without Dončić, the Mavs' season ended with a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in the play-in tournament.

Dončić and the Lakers will face the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series on Tuesday. The Timberwolves are leading 1-0 after an upset win in Game 1.

Two officials from the Dallas Mavericks had a "loud, heated confrontation" over the handling of center Dereck Lively II as he battled an ankle injury, according to ESPN's Tim MacMahon.

MacMahon reported athletic performance director Keith Belton laid out a plan for Lively to return in a Jan. 22 matchup with the Minnesota Timberwolves. However, director of player health and performance Johann Bilsborough wanted the 7'1" big to first undergo a CT scan, which showed he had a stress fracture in his right ankle.

"According to more than 10 team sources, the situation led to a loud, heated confrontation between Bilsborough and Belton that began in the trainer's room at the practice facility and continued into the weight room," MacMahon wrote.

He also spoke to a source who said, "Not punches, but they were going at it."

NBA insiders Marc Stein and Jake Fischer first reported Sunday that "Lively's stress fracture in his right foot in February also caused what league sources describe as some significant tensions within the organization, including a notable blowup" between Bilsborough and Belton. Now, there's additional context.

Rather than a mid-January return, Lively didn't suit back up until the Mavs' 120-118 win over the Atlanta Hawks on April 2. One source said that "somebody should be fired" for the fact he was seemingly poised to play on a fractured ankle.

MacMahon explained the situation "was a symptom of a much larger problem."

"Bilsborough does not respect Belton's acumen, sources said," he reported.

One person within the organization described Belton as "a glorified cheerleader."

For a lot of fans, trading franchise cornerstone Luka Dončić was justification enough to call for the ouster of general manager Nico Harrison.

When Bilsborough and Belton were both hired by Harrison, the reporting by Stein, Fischer and MacMahon will raise further questions about how the Mavericks are being run.

Former Dallas Mavericks team governor Mark Cuban "volunteered to serve as an intermediary" amid discord between general manager Nico Harrison and franchise cornerstone Luka Dončić, according to ESPN's Tim MacMahon.

"But Harrison had succeeded in pushing Cuban completely out of basketball operations since Patrick Dumont took over as the team's governor and didn't want to cede any ground, sources said," McMahon wrote.

The newest report underlines how much Cuban's influence has waned behind the scenes since he sold a majority stake in the organization to the Adelson family.

Despite the fact he became only a minority stakeholder, Cuban signaled at the time of the transaction he'd remain an important figure on basketball-related matters.

Instead, team governor Patrick Dumont empowered Harrison to run the basketball side as he sees fit. That included dealing away Dončić, a generational talent and fan favorite.

The outcry following that trade was immediate and hasn't simmered in Dallas.

Cuban, meanwhile, has watched the fanbase turn against him as well since selling such a large share of the Mavericks is what helped set this all in motion.

In March, Cuban responded on Facebook to a former team employee who suggested he "should be run out of Dallas (via José Sánchez Córdova of the Dallas Morning News).

"Actually I fully expected to run basketball," he said. "The NBA wouldn't let me put it in the contract. They took it out. I thought (the Adelsons) would stick to their word because they didn't know the first thing about running a team. Someone obviously changed their mind."

Somebody with Cuban's business experience should know it doesn't matter unless it's in writing.

The Dallas Mavericks' rollercoaster season came to an end on Friday in the play-in tournament, and more details are emerging about their tumultuous year.

NBA insiders Marc Stein and Jake Fischer reported that the foot injury sustained by Mavs center Dereck Lively II in February "caused what league sources describe as some significant tensions within the organization, including a notable blowup between director of player health and performance Johann Bilsborough and athletic performance director Keith Belton."

Lively was hoping to build off his promising rookie year but instead was limited to 36 games with 29 starts after suffering a stress fracture in his right foot. He averaged 8.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.6 blocks while shooting 70.2 percent from the field.

Lively's injury was just one of the many bumps in the road for the Mavs this season, as they finished with a 39-43 record and lost to the Memphis Grizzlies with the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference Playoffs on the line. General manager Nico Harrison made the shocking decision to trade star guard Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, kicking off a run of bad luck in Dallas as star forward Anthony Davis missed six weeks with an adductor strain and star guard Kyrie Irving suffered a season-ending torn ACL.

Stein noted that this year marked "the first season for both Bilsborough and Belton in Dallas after Harrison removed highly regarded Casey Smith from his role as the head of Dallas' medical matters for nearly 20 years." Harrison vehemently defended the team's medical staff when he met with reporters last week:

Lively is believed to be a big part of the Mavs' future, but he has yet to prove that he can stay healthy over the course of a full season. Dallas will need to be cautious with its handling of the 21-year-old big man if it wants to bring the best out of him next year and beyond.