{"id":123677,"date":"2025-02-14T02:06:46","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T07:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=123677"},"modified":"2025-02-14T02:06:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T07:06:46","slug":"mavericks-daniel-gafford-injury-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/14\/mavericks-daniel-gafford-injury-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavericks Injury Update Levies Major Hit to Their Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

If losing\u00a0<\/span>Anthony Davis<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to a significant injury in his debut wasn’t bad enough, things got that much worse for the Dallas Mavericks now that\u00a0<\/span>Daniel Gafford<\/span><\/a>\u00a0will be out of the lineup for an extended period of time. The\u00a0<\/span>injuries keep hitting the Mavs<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the worst and most inconvenient ways. The 6’10 center completes the Mavericks party of big men presently on ice, leaving\u00a0<\/span>Kessler Edwards<\/span><\/a>\u00a0as the team’s last man standing in the paint. Talk about bad timing and hard times to be a Mavericks fan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mavericks Injury Update Levies Major Hit to Their Season<\/h2>\n

Mavericks Injury Ices Daniel Gafford for Several Weeks With MCL Sprain<\/h3>\n

Gafford joins\u00a0<\/span>Dereck Lively II<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Dwight Powell<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>P.J. Washington<\/span><\/a>, and Davis on the sidelines with injuries. Incredibly, Dallas has gone 4-1 in their last five games with such a depleted roster, especially in paint personnel. Gafford’s MCL sprain and six-week return timetable, which was relayed from\u00a0<\/span>sources to ESPN’s Shams Charania and Tim McMahon<\/span><\/a>, adds to the Mav’s mind-bending, painful previous two weeks considering the trade that shocked the league involving\u00a0<\/span>Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/span><\/a>\u00a0being shipped out to the\u00a0<\/span>Los Angeles Lakers<\/span><\/a>. Dallas’s playoff chances have to be in serious question right about now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gafford has stayed relatively healthy all season, playing in 51 of the Mavericks 56 contests. He’s also initiated steady and consistent production defensively and offensively. On 69.9% shooting from the field, Gafford averages 12.3 points per game. He’s also adding 6.9 rebounds and 1.9 blocks in 21 minutes a night. AD going down so suddenly meant Gafford’s minutes would increase significantly, with Edwards backing him up. Suffice it to say, plans have changed for head coach\u00a0<\/span>Jason Kidd<\/span><\/a>, who, by the way, must be feeling some kind of way about his current circumstance in Dallas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A Season Lost?<\/h3>\n

Miraculously, the Mavericks remain in a playoff position today. The play-in is where they’re technically at, but they’re not far back from a playoff spot. Miraculously, only because they were able to stay above water during Luka’s lengthy absence while he was still with the team. Coming off of a hard-fought win over the Golden State Warriors two days ago Wednesday and beating the Miami Heat the following night, the Mavs are still staying above water. The question is: just how long can they?<\/p>\n

It would be an incredible thing if\u00a0<\/span>Kyrie Irving<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Klay Thompson<\/span><\/a>\u00a0were able to lead a hampered roster to enough wins, keeping them competitive until they can welcome back some much-needed healthy bodies. Healthy and intact, <\/span>especially<\/span>including AD, the Mavs would make for a tough playoff opponent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Return Timetables for Davis, Lively, and Gafford<\/h3>\n

The playoffs are still a ways away, so the focus of attention needs to be on the now. Gafford was initially supposed to miss two weeks before the update today given by Shams. Six weeks is now the recovery window. Lively has been out of the lineup with a stress fracture in his right ankle and was expected to miss at least four weeks. He will eventually be re-evaluated at that time. As for Davis, he reportedly will avoid surgery for his adductor strain injury, which is good news all around. However, there is no certain timetable for his return, but given that the playoffs are still two months away, he could make his return by then.<\/p>\n

There’s no doubt the\u00a0<\/span>Mavericks are in a state of flux<\/span><\/a>\u00a0right now. They need their big men\u2014all of them\u2014to get healthy and return to the floor. Otherwise, it will be tough sledding for the rest of the season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Jerome Miron-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If losing\u00a0Anthony Davis\u00a0to a significant injury in his debut wasn’t bad enough, things got that much worse for the Dallas Mavericks now that\u00a0Daniel Gafford\u00a0will be out of the lineup for an extended period of time. The\u00a0injuries keep hitting the Mavs\u00a0in the worst and most inconvenient ways. The 6’10 center completes the Mavericks party of big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":123678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,1608,62],"tags":[240,1453,4840,159,218,70,406,1133,1826],"class_list":["post-123677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mavericks","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-anthony-davis","tag-daniel-gafford","tag-dereck-lively-ii","tag-dwight-powell","tag-jason-kidd","tag-klay-thompson","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-luka-doncic","tag-p-j-washington"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123680,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123677\/revisions\/123680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}