The Dallas Mavericks’ disastrous season might be about to get even more embarrassing.
The Mavericks’ injury crisis has worsened to the point that, combined with two-way player rules and salary cap restrictions, there is a chance the team could be forced to forfeit at least one upcoming game due to not having enough healthy players. The issue became a more realistic possibility after guard Dante Exum suffered a season-ending injury Friday against the Houston Rockets. Dallas only dressed nine players for that game, one above the eight-player minimum, and that was before Exum’s injury.
ESPN’s Bobby Marks laid out the scenario in a YouTube video posted on Saturday. The Mavericks’ offseason Klay Thompson sign-and-trade move triggered a hard cap for the team on the first apron. The Mavericks are under the first apron by $51,000, having used up all their additional flexibility in making the Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis trade last month.
According to Marks, the earliest the Mavericks would be able to sign an additional player is April 10, at which point the pro-rated veteran minimum would be less than that $51,000 figure.
The Mavericks have two healthy players on two-way contracts, but league rules dictate that those players can only be active for a maximum of 50 games per season. Kessler Edwards has played in 37 games and remained an unused substitute in ten more, leaving him three short of that threshold. Brandon Williams has 25 appearances and 19 other games he dressed for, leaving him with only six more games before hitting the limit.
Marks concludes that unless the Mavericks get some of their injured players back within the next nine days, they could be left with fewer than eight healthy players for their March 24 game against Brooklyn. That might leave them in a position where they would have to forfeit.
The alternative would be to lie on the injury report and list injured players as healthy and able to dress, even if none of them could actually play. That could lead to an NBA investigation, which the league has been doing a lot of recently, but it would still be a less embarrassing outcome than having to forfeit a game.
One bit of good news for Dallas is that some players might be back in action by March 24. PJ Washington seems to be progressing toward a return, but that would still leave them in need of an eighth player, and that assumes they will not suffer any new injuries before then.
Notably, while there are ample examples of postponements or delays, no NBA team has ever been forced to forfeit a game.
Obviously, the Mavericks never could have planned for such an absurd amount of injuries, and they cannot really be blamed for that. However, it still feels like a fitting outcome for a team that has become a punchline since trading Doncic to the Lakers. Since then, Davis got hurt in his first game with the team, Kyrie Irving suffered a season-ending ACL tear, and the team has barely had any healthy players for about two weeks now. There is no reason to think it will get any better at this point.
