{"id":131697,"date":"2025-03-30T17:59:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T21:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=131697"},"modified":"2025-03-30T18:01:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T22:01:27","slug":"mavericks-daniel-gafford-dereck-lively-injury-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/30\/mavericks-daniel-gafford-dereck-lively-injury-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Play-In Seed Strengthens with Latest Mavericks Injury Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there is one team in the NBA that simply will not die, it’s the Dallas Mavericks. Jason Kidd’s squad had every reason to\u00a0<\/span>let this season go and try again next year<\/span><\/a>. Despite being without\u00a0<\/span>Anthony Davis<\/span><\/a>, whom they acquired in the trade with\u00a0<\/span>Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/span><\/a>\u00a0until just recently, Dallas kept playing and winning enough to keep them afloat in the West. The Mavericks stood as tall as they could, while\u00a0<\/span>Daniel Gafford<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Dereck Lively II<\/span><\/a>\u00a0were also out with injuries. With a depleted roster, the chance for the Phoenix Suns to overtake Dallas never happened. With Davis back and good news concerning Gafford and Lively, the Mavericks might just hold on to their play-in seed and see what happens from there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Play-In Seed Strengthens with Latest Mavericks Injury Update<\/h2>\n

Dallas Mavericks On Track to Receive Back-Up Support with Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II Set to Return from Injury<\/h3>\n

If you ask Kidd, a depleted roster might come off as too kind. He had no roster, essentially, and as comical as it was deeply unfair for the Mavericks head coach, it was his reality for a short stretch. There was even talk of Dallas having to forfeit a game. We’ll never know how close it was to that scenario being very real, considering it didn’t come to that. After all that chaos, Dallas miraculously\u00a0remains in contention, for the play-in, at least. Whether they sniff the playoffs is another question, but they have a shot for now.\u00a0<\/span>Davis being back indeed helps<\/span><\/a>, and he’s looked good and played well since returning. Dallas has won two consecutive games and has a .500 record in their last 10.<\/span><\/p>\n

More good news is on the horizon, which only helps Dallas even more.\u00a0<\/span>According to Marc Stein of The Stein Line<\/span><\/a>, the good news regards the Mavericks’ two other big men, Gafford and Lively, who have missed significant time due to their respective injuries. Gafford hasn’t played since February 10 due to a knee injury. He had experienced some injuries earlier in the season before this latest one, but none kept him sidelined this long.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lively has been out since January 14 with an ankle injury and has missed the most games this season of the Mavericks’ paint players. He was off to a great start to the season after a solid rookie season last year. Injuries, however, have played a role in his early NBA journey. When he returns, and it’s expected that he will, Lively will have played in less than 40 games this season. Last year, he played in 55.<\/p>\n

Just In Time…For What?<\/h3>\n

A hot debate going back a few weeks was whether Dallas should bring back any of Davis, Gafford, or Lively at all. Considering that\u00a0<\/span>Kyrie Irving<\/span><\/a>\u00a0will not return until late next season, and AD with his injury history, what good would it do the Mavericks to risk further injury by bringing their players back when there is no real hope for a deep playoff run? Without Irving but with the rest of the roster healthy, the Mavericks will still find it hard to make significant playoff noise. They have to make it out of the play-in first, and that alone might be too difficult a task.<\/span><\/p>\n

That said, Dallas has to be commended for not giving up on the season like they did two years ago. They continued to fight (<\/span>Phoenix continued to lose<\/span><\/a>), and here they are, in a play-in spot, soon to be as healthy as they’ve been in a while. Will they go far? Likely not, but they didn’t die, and that’s something Kidd should be proud of.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

If there is one team in the NBA that simply will not die, it’s the Dallas Mavericks. Jason Kidd’s squad had every reason to\u00a0let this season go and try again next year. Despite being without\u00a0Anthony Davis, whom they acquired in the trade with\u00a0Luka Don\u010di\u0107\u00a0until just recently, Dallas kept playing and winning enough to keep them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":131698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[1608,30,62],"tags":[240,1453,4840,406,1133],"class_list":["post-131697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-mavericks","category-nba","tag-anthony-davis","tag-daniel-gafford","tag-dereck-lively-ii","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-luka-doncic"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131697","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=131697"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131711,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131697\/revisions\/131711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}