Haliburton's gruesome injury exposes another nasty Mavericks truth from Doncic trade

The 2025 NBA Finals was one of the league's greatest duels for the Larry O'Brien trophy of this century. The Tyrese Haliburton-led Indiana Pacers had a remarkable Cinderella run to make it to the Finals, completing some of the most improbable comebacks in NBA history.

However, Sunday's Game 7 matchup began with Haliburton tearing his Achilles in a gruesome first-quarter injury. Haliburton picked up a calf strain in Game 4 and was advised to rest for multiple weeks, but he played through the injury until his ultimate Achilles tear. Three players tore their Achilles in the 2025 NBA Playoffs: Haliburton, Jayson Tatum, and Damian Lillard. All three All-NBA talents experienced calf problems before tearing their Achilles.

When Luka Doncic was traded by the Dallas Mavericks, one of the final straws that prompted GM Nico Harrison to offload the Slovenian superstar was that the Mavs wanted Doncic to return from the calf strain that he suffered on Christmas before he was ready. Haliburton's injury (and the Mavs' medical nightmare) proves that Doncic is not the lazy, insolent player Harrison claimed. Rather, Doncic was pushed out by a short-sighted Mavericks front office incapable of waiting for Doncic to fully heal from his injury. Dallas ultimately caved and let Doncic's camp get their way by allowing him to take his camp's injury timetable (six weeks) rather than theirs (two to three weeks), and him coming back early could have led to him suffering a catastrophic injury just like Haliburton did.

Tyrese Haliburton's Achilles tear proves Luka Doncic right yet again

Sports medicine has rapidly progressed in recent years. Lower body ligament tears, such as an ACL tear, used to be a death sentence to an NBA player's career. But players like Kawhi Leonard and Jamal Murray were able to return to their old form after their devastating injuries.

However, Achilles tears remain the elusive injury that sports medicine is unable to solve. Achilles tears effectively ended the careers of NBA stars Kobe Bryant, Chauncey Billups, and DeMarcus Cousins. Even in the success stories, such as Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson, the players never moved as fluidly and explosively as they did pre-Achilles injury.

Achilles tears are becoming significantly more common in the NBA, as the NBA set a new record this season for most Achilles tears in a season with eight, a massive increase over the previous record of five. As the sample size grows, a clear pattern has emerged: players who played through calf strains were much more likely to suffer an Achilles tear. This was the case for Haliburton, Bryant, Durant, and former NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers.

Doncic disagreed with the Mavericks' training staff about his injury, remarking that this was the only injury he had allowed to fully heal before returning to play. The recent surge in Achilles injuries and growing sample suggesting playing calf strains cause this catastrophic injury proves that Doncic made the correct decision to not return from injury prematurely, like the Mavericks wanted.

The Mavericks' training staff fiasco provides additional support to the claim that Dallas was rushing Doncic back from injury. After Derek Lively II suffered a stress fracture this year, it was revealed that the Mavs training staff initially diagnosed the injury as an ankle sprain. This mistake led to the firing of two leaders of the training staff and the bombshell news that Keith Bolton, the former Athletic Performance Director for the Mavs, didn't even posses the required qualifications for his job.

As the public learns more information about the situation leading to the Doncic trade, it has become increasingly clear that Harrison had no real reason to trade Doncic.

Every justification for the move has been proven wrong. Harrison baselessly knocked Doncic's work ethic, then his choice to use his own medical staff. Finally, Harrison expressed concerns over Doncic's looming supermax extension. All of these reasons are foolish at best. Doncic has worked tirelessly to become one of the league's premier stars, the Mavs' training staff was proven to be incompetent, and Doncic clearly deserves a supermax.

Unfortunately for Mavs fans, the trade cannot be undone. However, steps can be taken to prevent a season as disastrous as the 2024-25 season was. The most critical step is clearly to fire Nico Harrison, but it appears that won't happen for a while. Instead, Mavs fans should hope that Mavericks' Governor Patrick Dumont surrounds Harrison with a staff and structure that prevents the historically catastrophic mistakes Harrison has made in his short tenure.