Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd has explained why the Dallas Mavericks rested five of their best players against the Chicago Bulls on Friday.
It was a baffling decision considering Dallas was still able to make the play-in tournament before losing to the Bulls. And yet, the Mavericks rested Kyrie Irving, Tim Hardaway Jr, Maxi Kleber, Christian Wood and Josh Green anyway, while Luka Doncic only played the first quarter and a fraction of the second.
“I can’t speak for him,” Kidd said, when asked how Luka Doncic felt about sitting for most of the game. “But I think when you look at, we all said that we want to have the opportunity to find a way to get in and we were gonna play until told otherwise. And today is the day that we’ve been told that we’re gonna do something different. And so he’s gonna participate in the first quarter and then he’s done for the season.”
Kidd’s comments were a remarkable admission that Mavs management had decided to tank.
Similarly shocking was Dallas finding themselves fighting for the last play-in spot, considering they made the Western Conference Finals last season and added Kyrie Irving since then.
Late last month, Irving said the Mavericks’ playoff situation was a “clusterf*ck”, and you could very well use that same word to describe Dallas’ entire backend of the season.
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