NBA rules add yet another insult to injury after devastating Kyrie Irving news

The Dallas Mavericks are seemingly cursed, as the team hasn't been able to string together a stretch of something terrible not happening in the injury department ever since Nico Harrison opted to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers on February 1.

Anthony Davis strained his adductor in his first game back from injury, Caleb Martin is just now getting a G League assignment to ramp up his activity after being out for weeks with a hip strain, Daniel Gafford suffered a knee sprain a few weeks ago, and now the only player keeping Dallas afloat through all of this in Kyrie Irving has suffered a torn left ACL.

Irving's injury toward the end of the first quarter last night in Dallas' blowout loss to the Sacramento Kings was a gruesome scene, though there was some initial optimism that he didn't suffer a season-ending injury. However, this is not the case whatsoever after news broke of Irving tearing his ACL on Tuesday morning, and now the Mavericks' playoff hopes are as bleak as ever.

The Mavericks are truly in the phantom zone at the moment, as they are stuck with one of the most beat-up rosters in the NBA with a record of 32-30 and a 3.5 game lead for the sole possession of the 10th seed in the Western Conference. With only 20 games remaining in the regular season, it's almost too late for the Mavericks to tank, and their realistic best case scenario this season is winning one or two games in the first round against a top seed if they somehow get fully healthy before the playoffs barring Irving.

Mavericks can't sign another player despite horrendous Irving injury

Mavericks fans are getting accustomed to not catching any breaks at this point in the 2024-25 season, so they shouldn't be surprised that Dallas' bad news on Tuesday didn't stop at Irving's injury announcement. Shortly after Irving's injury broke, Chris Haynes reported that Jaden Hardy would miss a period of time with an ankle sprain suffered last night versus the Kings as well, and ESPN's Bobby Marks reported on a financial stipulation that will plague the Mavericks even with the Irving injury news.

As has been stated on this site countless times, the Mavericks are hard-capped at the first apron because of taking back more money than not in the Martin-Quentin Grimes swap, and the Mavericks won't have the financial leniency to sign another player until April 10 because of the restrictions on how a team hard-capped at the first apron has to operate.

Disabled player exceptions are eligible to be applied for by a given team if a player suffers a season-ending injury, but teams don't have the ability to file for one of these after January 15, so Dallas couldn't file for one of these after the Irving injury news. Furthermore, Marks posted on X that the Mavericks are unable to waive a $1 million bonus in Irving's contract that he would receive by the Mavericks winning 50 games and him playing 50 games, as the bonus counts against the first apron despite Irving no longer being eligible to reach the bonus.

Being able to fill that 15th roster spot would be huge right now, as they could sign another guard to help them get through this hard time, and Harrison's gamble that is the Martin-Grimes trade continues to look worse. This problem of not being able to sign anyone was extremely preventable, and Harrison ignored it.

This adds insult to injury for an already devastating situation for the Mavericks, and the trickle effects of Harrison's ill-fated decision to trade Doncic are being displayed with each passing day.

Davis re-injuring himself in a similar area to the injury that kept him out for a few games in Los Angeles before joining the Mavericks points towards Harrison not understanding the totality of who he was trading for, and now Irving (who turns 33 years old in under three weeks) will have to climb an uphill battle in recovering from a torn ACL after having to summon an almost insurmountable workload in his 14th NBA season recently because of the injuries to Dallas' roster.

While the Mavericks' season is trending toward missing the playoffs entirely with a mediocre record or losing in the play-in, Mavericks fans should send Irving all their prayers and well wishes after this situation, as his poise in this post-Doncic era and leadership that he's brought to this city and organization over the past two years has been truly amazing.