Why were the Dallas Mavericks fined $750K by the NBA?
Not only did the Mavs miss out on the NBA playoffs but now they’ve been fined by the league for apparently doing so intentionally to protect Draft lottery chances.
With the team now set to face a heavy fine from NBA for what has been called “conduct detrimental to the league,” the issue of tanking has once again been thrust into focus. The situation centers around the fact that the Mavericks chose to rest players in an elimination game against the Chicago Bulls which turned out to be the loss that put them out of Play-In tournament contention. Why? If we go with the NBA’s position, because they wanted to protect their Draft lottery odds.
NBA fines Dallas Mavericks $750K for tanking
According to an NBA announcement on Friday, the Dallas Mavericks have been fined $750,000 fine for conduct detrimental to the league, after resting healthy players in a crucial game against the Chicago Bulls on April 7th. The league has deemed the Mavericks’ actions as an attempt to improve their chances in the Draft Lottery. “...The Mavericks violated the league’s player resting policy and demonstrated through actions and public statements the organization’s desire to lost the game in order to improve the chances of keeping its first-round pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. “The league did not find that the players who participated in the game were not playing to win,” the statement read in part.
What exactly did the Mavericks do?
When the Mavericks entered that game with the Bulls, there was - as mentioned before - a chance at qualifying for the Play-In tournament. A win against Chicago would have maintained pressure on the Thunder in the race for the tenth seed in the conference. You will recall, they got themselves a huge win against the high-flying Kings just days before. There were also comments made by star player, Luka Doncic, who indicated that he would be on the court as long as there was a shot at the postseason. Of course, what happened next is precisely why we’re here. Dallas chose to rest Kyrie Irving, Josh Green, Tim Hardaway Jr., Christian Wood and Maxi Kleber.
Why did the Mavs do that?
Like we said before, this was about the upcoming NBA Draft Lottery. To be clear, the Mavs’ owed the New York Knicks a top-10 protected selection in the next draft as a result of the Kristaps Porzingis trade which occurred back in 2019. What that meant is that if they landed outside of the top 10, they wouldn’t have to give up that pick. You can see where this is going. So, in the end it appears as though the Mavs tried to pull a fast one on both the league and the Knicks. This isn’t to say we haven’t seen teams try to tank in the name of Draft capital before, but not so blatantly. Indeed, whether we’re talking about tanking, draft capital or the work load that players face, NBA executive vice president Joe Dumars’ take on the situation still stands. “...The Mavericks’ actions failed our fans and our league.”