The NBA hit the Dallas Mavericks on Friday with a $750,000 fine for “conduct detrimental to the league” after sitting many key players, including Kyrie Irving, Tim Hardaway Jr, and Christian Wood, during last Friday’s loss to the Chicago Bulls.
The Mavericks entered the game with their playoff hopes still intact but needed to win to avoid elimination. Instead, the team turned to its bench players, signaling they were giving up on the season to all who were watching.
“Things change,” head coach Jason Kidd told the media before Friday’s game. “As an organization, they made this decision, but we still have to be professionals and go out there and put our best foot forward… The organization made a decision to change, and we have to go by that.”
“It’s not so much waving the white flag,” he added after the loss. “Decisions, sometimes, are hard in this business, and you have to make hard decisions. We’re trying to build a championship team, and sometimes you’ve got to take a step back.”
The league announced it would be launching an investigation after the game and found that Dallas “violated the league’s player resting policy and demonstrated through actions and public statements the organization’s desire to lose the game in order to improve the chances of keeping its first-round pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. ”
“The Dallas Mavericks’ decision to restrict key players from fully participating in an elimination game last Friday against Chicago undermined the integrity of our sport,” NBA Executive Vice President and Head of Basketball Operations, Joe Dumars, said in a news release from the league. “The Mavericks’ actions failed our fans and our league.”
The Mavericks still owe the New York Knicks a draft pick that is top-10 protected from the Kristaps Porzingis trade. The protections allow Dallas to keep the pick if it stays in the top 10, which could only happen if the Mavericks ended up in the draft lottery.
It should be noted that the NBA did not find any evidence of the players who did play intentionally throwing the game.
Dallas went on to lose its final two games of the 2022-23 season, finishing with the 10th-worst record in the NBA at 38-44.
The Mavericks declined to comment on the NBA’s decision.