The Dallas Mavericks were fined $750,000 by the NBA for ‘conduct detrimental to the league’ after resting players earlier this month

The 2022-23 season ended early for the Dallas Mavericks as they were not able to make the play-in tournament. That may have been their plan all along and they didn’t fool anyone in the process. Dallas was fined $750,000 for sitting players on 4/7 vs the Chicago Bulls in a game where they lost and were eliminated from the playoffs. The league office claims that the Mavericks did this with hopes of retaining their first-round draft pick that could go to the Knicks. 

It was determined that Dallas resting their key players on 4/7 was “conduct detrimental to the league” and they had to pay for it, literally. Losing that game was Dallas’ way of trying to hold on to a first-round draft pick that could go to the Knicks if it falls outside of the top ten. Not making the play-in game helped those chances.

The following was released by the NBA. pic.twitter.com/t92m7uPKR1

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) April 14, 2023

Dallas Mavericks were fined $750,000 by the NBA for ‘conduct detrimental to the league’

In their 115-112 loss to the Chicago Bulls on 4/7, the Dallas Mavericks sat Kyrie Irving the entire game and Luka Doncic played only 13 minutes. On top of that,  Tim Hardaway Jr., Maxi Kleber, Josh Green, and Christian Wood all were out for that game as well. The league did determine that the players Dallas used that night were not tanking the game and were in fact playing to win.

This is the second time since 2018 that Dallas has been fined after looking into a potential tanking situation. The NBA fined Mark Cuban $600,000 back in 2018 for comments about tanking when talking on a podcast with NBA Hall of Fame, Julius Erving. Dallas finished with a 24-58 and Commissioner Adam Silver called those “public statements detrimental to the league”.

Joe Dumars, the NBA’s Executive Vice President and Head of Basketball Operations, said that the Mavericks failed their fans and the NBA.