The Dallas Mavericks have suffered greatly since they traded All-Star Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. Injuries have piled on as the Mavs have dealt with significant setbacks from most of their key players. Before trading away Doncic, Dallas was already dealing with Deredk Lively II with a right stress fracture. After shipping their best player to the Lakers, injuries to other players followed.
Following the injury to Lively, their starting center, Daniel Gafford, experienced an unfortunate injury. Gafford has missed the last 10 games because of a right knee sprain. The star player the Mavs received from the Doncic trade, Anthony Davis, is also in the sidelines. He’s missed the last 11 games because of a strained left adductor.
Additionally, All-Star guard Kyrie Irving has been ruled out for the rest of the season because of a torn ACL injury.
Aside from the ones mentioned, there are a few players in the injury report for the Mavericks. After their 125-116 loss against the Phoenix Suns, head coach Jason Kidd addressed the depth problems the team has been dealing with.
“I’ve never seen this. Never been on a game where you cannot take someout out to rest them because we had no one to put in,” Kidd said. “The end of the bench, normally, you can put someone in… It’s tough. It is what it is, though. Gotta keep pushing forward.”
“I’ve never seen this. Where you can’t take someone out to rest them because we had no one to put in.”
Jason Kidd speaks on the lack of available players at this point in the season for the Mavericks. pic.twitter.com/DkN36FJJe1
— Abby Jones (@_abigaiiiil) March 9, 2025
Against the Suns, the Mavericks had nine players in their rotation. However, most of them are third-string rotation pieces. Klay Thompson was the only player in the starting lineup from the beginning of the season who was healthy.
Dallas is 10th in the Western Conference with a 32-33 record. The team represented the conference last year in the NBA Finals and will likely miss the postseason this year.
All-Star big man wanted to assure Dallas Mavericks fans about his stardom following the Doncic trade
After the Dallas Mavericks traded Doncic, most fans were disappointed in the organization since the five-time All-Star was a favorite. Even though the Slovenian star isn’t with the team, the star player the franchise received is still capable of being the next poster boy. In Davis’ first game for Dallas, he wanted to let the team’s supporters know that he can give something that’s close to what the 26-year-old guard provided.
“I know who I am as a player,” Davis said. “I’m top-75 of all time. I just wanted to let Dallas fans know — I’ve got y’all, I’m here, I’m here now. I know you lost a superstar in Luka, but you also gained a superstar in myself.”
Davis is excited to gain the fans’ confidence in himself once he gets healthy. Fortunately for the supporters, the Mavericks are confident he’ll return to action soon.
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Reign also writes NBA and WNBA news updates on Sportskeeda. He started as a feature writer for AirAlamo, an NBA website that covers the San Antonio Spurs. Some of his work can also be seen on Valley of the Suns, a Phoenix Suns-centric website, where he served as a contributing writer.
