NBA officials opened an investigation Saturday into the Mavericks' decision-making surrounding Friday's game against the Chicago Bulls, in which Dallas sat Kyrie Irving for the entire game and Luka Doncic for most of the contest.
held out several key players in their next-to-last game of the season, even while the team still had a mathematical chance of making the play-in tournament.
Potential penalties are unclear, though Commissioner Adam Silver made clear before the season began that the league wouldn't tolerate any obvious attempts at tanking. Dallas had Irving, Tim Hardaway Jr., Maxi Kleber, Josh Green and Christian Wood all out for Friday's win-or-else game, and it limited Doncic to about one quarter of play before pulling him for the remainder of the contest. Doncic played briefly on a night that paid tribute to his native Slovenia, with the Mavericks handing out souvenir Slovenia-themed scarves to the first 3,500 fans in attendance. He came out less than a minute into the second quarter.
Postgame, Kidd added: "This is maybe a step back, but hopefully it leads to going forward. ... These are decisions that are made from my bosses and we've got to follow them and we trust that Cuban and Nico are going to put the pieces together to put us in a position to win a championship. And that's just starting the process today.
Not making the play-in tournament helps Dallas' chances of claiming no worse than the No. 10 pick in this summer's draft - which is important. If the Mavs' pick is between No. 1 and No. 10, Dallas keeps it. If it is No. 11 or deeper in the draft, it conveys to New York as part of the compensation agreed to in the Kristaps Porzingis trade in 2019.
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