NBA insider reveals tension with key Maverick's injury

Second-year center Dereck Lively II went down with what looked to be a sprained ankle against the Denver Nuggets on January 14th, he missed a few games and was ramping up to play against the Charlotte Hornets on January 20th, then missed the next two months after they discovered he had a stress fracture in his ankle, causing a lot of confusion among the fanbase.

According to DLLS' Marc Stein, that was also a point of tension within the organization, which he reported after Friday's elimination from the Play-In Tournament, stating "Lively's foot injury was at the center of some significant tensions among new members of Dallas’ medical and performance team at the team’s practice facility in February... There has been increasing scrutiny on medical matters and the team he assembled because of Dallas' season-long health woes." He also reported that Lively remained on a minutes restriction in the Play-In after coming back from the injury.

This is mostly a new training staff, as Johann Bilsborough took over this year after the team pushed the iconic and well-beloved Casey Smith out the door. But Nico Harrison adamantly defended the new training staff in Tuesday's secret press conference.

"90% of our injuries before the trade were contact injuries. That means they're unavoidable. Since then, since the trade, it's down to like 75%. And so when you talk about contact, contact injuries, those. Those are unavoidable injuries. Now, in terms of our medical staff, they're elite, and of course, they're not happy with the amount of injuries, but a lot of those are unavoidable," Harrison first commented about the injuries, but then he commented further on Lively's situation, which makes it sound ridiculous.

"It actually goes to show the strength of our medical team, because he was cleared to play, but his signs and symptoms were—our medical team knew it was something more, and so that's why they went and tested him again and saw the CT scan, which—they actually avoided a potential catastrophic injury.
So you know, you will take the angle of being negative, but it's actually a positive thing, because they saw with the symptoms, even though he was cleared to play, they didn't feel right putting him on the floor. And so they went back. They stopped him from playing. They went back. They re-tested, and thank God we saw that he had a stress fracture."

Harrison then had the nerve to think he's upgraded from Casey Smith, who has also been the athletic trainer for USA Basketball, stating, "We're excited about the team that we have. We feel that the guys that replaced them have done an amazing job. And again, you're coming at me from a negative standpoint, and I look at it from a positive standpoint, the guys that we brought in are better."

It's hard to argue that they've been better when players like Anthony Davis and P.J. Washington have openly admitted they returned sooner than they should've from injuries, Hardy injures the same body part four times in one season, and nearly every player deals with some sort of major injury. Sometimes it's luck, but sometimes it can be avoided, and the Mavs did a poor job of preventing injuries this season. For Nico Harrison to have the gall to say they have a better training staff after pushing arguably the most well-respected trainer in the business out the door, who's now with the New York Knicks, is a fireable offense in and of itself.