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[MacMahon] There’s weird stuff going on with the Mavericks… this banishment of Casey Smith who’s probably the most respected athletic trainer in the NBA. He’s been on the bench for 20 years. He’s not going to be on the bench this year. He’s not going to be traveling. It is not his decision.



> There’s a combination of people being pissed and people being concerned within the Mavericks organization about that. I’m not going to get into why that decision was made because I honestly haven’t gotten a straight answer. I’ve gotten a lot of secondhand answers. I’ve gotten two different secondhand answers, neither of which are great.

Bonus quote from Windhorst:

> Two weeks ago, we were just killing time before the season started and we were like, who’s this year’s Sacramento Kings and who’s this year’s Dallas Mavericks? An NBA executive listened to the pod. He sent me a text: “this year’s Dallas Mavericks are the Dallas Mavericks.”

Starting at 38:18 of [The Hoop Collective](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brian-windhorst-the-hoop-collective/id293376147?i=1000630418460).

by iksnet

35 Comments

  1. JoelEmbeggingForMVP

    The environment Luka creates seems toxic af

  2. biggoldgoblin

    Missing the playoffs two years in a row would be rough when you got Luka, but I don’t think there will be too much change in that org apart from a new head coach

  3. rahbee33

    Mavericks are up there for teams that seem to constantly have weird stuff going on.

  4. CaptainBananafishJr

    Some allegations about to drop?

  5. SwiggySiggyDoc

    I wonder if this is on Luka or Ky?

  6. RyanBlackburn

    More Cuban shenanigans. With each of these weird incidents, Luka goes one step closer to demanding a trade.

  7. HeGotTheShotOff

    I had to listen to a decade of “blazers are wasting dame” why isn’t there more “mavericks are wasting Luka”

  8. Mark Cuban probably got some kinda feud with him

  9. Purples_A_Fruit

    I’m shocked that a team with Mark Cuban as an owner and Jason Kidd as a coach is up to weird shit.

    Shocked I say.

  10. StefonDiggsHS

    Classic Tim MacMahon talking out of his ass again to write a new hit piece on the mavs. MacMahon doesn’t have sources with the Mavs anymore because everyone hates him for constantly lying and making conjectures and over exaggerating details. In his podcast he was yelling about the Mavs starting 2 rookies in a fucking preseason game. He is constantly trying to find new angles to shit on the mavs. Hides behind his ESPN title but MacMahon is not a reliable reporter

    edit: lol people will spin this as Im defending the mavs and im just not. Tim MacMahon is just a piece of shit reporter and constantly lies. Just search his name find past reports going YEARS back and he is consistently wrong and only spreading false gossip. I get its shit on the Mavs season and trust me im on board but you cannot listen to Tim seriously

    this is just one example out of thousands

    https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/e1n7ze/lukas_father_sasa_doncic_calls_espns_macmahon_out/

  11. Cark_Muban

    I mean is it really that weird for a brand new regime to want to bring in their own guys?

  12. Hogo-Nano

    Mavericks going all in on ball-dominant Kyrie when luka is literally a point forward is ridiculous. Wouldn’t even try that in 2k. He just needs a bunch of decent players around him to make threes and defend.

  13. McWhorter44

    too bad hell isnt real because rich people who fuck with peoples livelihoods deserve the worst

  14. maverickhistorian

    I’m going to invest in Jason Kidds stock on this one. His treatment of Wood and McGee was despicable. They both came to the team with positive mindsets and Kidd acted like they were sent to sabotage the team. He knew since wood had a reputation of being a team cancer he could get away with his treatment of him. The mavs fans and others have taken kidds side only bc of wood’s reputation even tho he did nothing. Kidd benched him the VERY FIRST game right after he scored 15 straight points to give the mavs a 15 point lead. He was taken out and never saw the floor again. It was 10 minutes left in the game. He said he wanted defense to close out the game. Woods sub was Dwight Powell, one of the worst defensive centers if not the worst in the league. He tried to bench wood anytime he got hot. The mavs media reporters would ask him what’s up with his strange benching of wood and he never had a good answer. He also would play wood with the worst possible lineups and limited his minutes with Luka and kyrie. He still was averaging 20 10 and 2 until his minutes were cut drastically. He just didn’t like McGee and would bench him immediately after any good minutes he played. Remember the great offensive and defensive showing he had against Sabonis leaving Saboner to having his worst game in years? I thought McGee was kidnapped bc he didn’t play for a month after that.

  15. LazyTitan___

    Kyrie didn’t like his aura, sources say

  16. AgadorFartacus

    They have so many, uh, let’s go with “strong personalities” to speculate about when something like this happens. Did Cuban want this? Kidd? Luka? Kyrie? Some combination thereof?

  17. Opening-Drive-5837

    Casey up to something Strange

  18. ScrewuGuysImGoingHme

    Mavericks seem like a very poorly run organization and for some reason they never get called out

  19. Threeballer97

    I would like to see a ranking of athletic trainers descending from most to least respected.

  20. ZombieFrog

    Why don’t you just ask him… “REPORTER”?

  21. cypherdust

    You just know JKidd is going to be fired 10 games into this season

  22. 2020IsANightmare

    It’s not “weird” per se.

    It’s bad management. Constantly. Topped off with trading for World B. Flat.

  23. RVAIsTheGreatest

    As said by others…there’s gonna have to come a time when Mark Cuban answers for some of this. He has evaded a ton of scrutiny and criticism surrounding his leadership while the Mavs organization on and off the floor has so routinely been a mess this last decade. Maybe ESPN will start peeling the curtain back a bit.

  24. Prestigious-State-15

    The Mavericks are a mess and will stay a mess.

  25. HelioFilter

    What’s going on in Dallas!? ☝️🤨☝️

  26. Dddddddfried

    [An SI article about the move.](https://www.si.com/nba/mavericks/news/dallas-mavs-athletic-trainer-casey-smith-new-role) From Sep. 25

    DALLAS — The Dallas Mavericks underwent no shortage of roster changes after a disappointing 38-44 finish to their 2022-23 campaign. Among the various organizational changes ahead of the upcoming season involves Mavs director of player health and performance Casey Smith.
    As first reported by ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, Smith will have a different role this season. He will no longer be on the team’s bench during games despite doing so since 2004-05 when he was named the head athletic trainer after departing the Phoenix Suns to join the Mavs organization.
    Smith has a year remaining on his contract and his future with the Mavs organization remains unclear after it expires. The team’s head athletic trainer, Dionne Calhoun, is likely to overtake Smith’s role on the bench. When the team announced the 2023-24 roster, Smith wasn’t mentioned altogether.

    The results achieved by the Mavs’ training staff will be pivotal throughout the season, given Luka Doncic has continued to deal with a lingering thigh injury that he first mentioned to reporters in early March of last season. Doncic has a close relationship with Smith, who has worked with the four-time All-NBA First-Team guard since the start of his NBA career and was often a member of the Mavs delegation that traveled to Slovenia to visit Doncic.
    “I do not know what to say,” Doncic told reporters at the FIBA World Cup. “It’s not okay. At the same time, I have to prepare for one more game, and then for a whole season in the NBA.”
    Many around the NBA hold Smith in a very high regard, including the Mavs’ top talents over the years between Doncic and Dirk Nowitzki, among planty of others. He served as the lead athletic trainer for Team USA from 2005 to 2012 in addition to his impact with the Mavs.

  27. culturebarren

    Is it actually weird for the Mavs organization to be problematic? Seems like it’s been the norm under Cuban

  28. Diesel07012012

    My money is on “he stood his ground to Cuban and a hissy fit ensued”.

  29. Emergency-Top-4505

    This years kings might be the kings too, everyone is sleeping on the beam team

  30. dragonwhale

    They are a horribly managed franchise.

    Scandals left and right

    Hiring Kidd.. Then when Monty, Budenholzer and Vogel all became available. All with vastly more expirence. They still stuck with Kidd after a historically bad season where he had horrible rotations which made a horrible roster look even worse. It was a choice to play Theo Pinson.

    Hiring a shoe salesman with as GM. Led to losing Brunson for free.

    Luka has yet to be punished for his crybaby behaviour. Absolute shit tier level of management. Literally lost Rick Carlisle as a head coach cause Luka didnt like him. Luka didnt like getting called out for being a little bitch.

    I call them the McMavericks cause they clowny as fuck

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