Mavs Notes: Hardy, Davis, Martin, Jones, Jensen

The Mavericks‘ injury report went from bad to worse on Tuesday when word broke that Kyrie Irving has sustained a torn ACL in his left knee and will miss the rest of the 2024/25 season. That’s not the only concerning injury news that has come out of Dallas today.

According to NBA insider Chris Haynes (Twitter link), the Mavs are expecting to be without reserve guard Jaden Hardy for “a period of time” after he sprained his right ankle in Monday’s loss to Sacramento. That update is pretty vague, but it suggests that Hardy’s injury is more than just a day-to-day issue.

Meanwhile, we’re still a couple days away from the date when Anthony Davis (adductor strain) is due to be reevaluated, but Shams Charania of ESPN offered an ominous update during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday, suggesting that there are some “very hard conversations” on tap for Davis and his representatives (Twitter video link). According to Charania, “it’s not out of the realm of possibility” that the big man doesn’t play again this season.

Amid the Mavericks’ flurry of injuries, head coach Jason Kidd said after Monday’s loss that he’s doing his best to make sure his team can “hold it together,” per Mike Curtis of The Dallas Morning News.

“It seems every time we’re getting close to getting someone back, someone goes down,” Kidd said. “… We’re running out of bodies here, but guys keep fighting.”

We have more on the Mavericks:

• There’s one bit of positive injury news for the Mavs on Tuesday. As Grant Afseth of the Dallas Hoops Journal relays (via Twitter), Caleb Martin has been assigned to the G League, which is another sign that he’s getting close to returning from the right hip strain that has kept him on the shelf since January 10. Martin has been able to take part in contact practices in recent days, as we noted on Monday.
• Kai Jones had a strong debut for Dallas on Monday after signing a two-way contract earlier in the day. The 24-year-old big man scored a career-high 21 points on 9-of-10 shooting and grabbed a season-high eight rebounds in nearly 34 minutes. Jones is eligible to be active for up to 12 games on his two-way deal, but Kidd sounds prepared to take advantage of all of those games, as Eddie Sefko of Mavs.com writes. “It’s always good to have flexibility, just in case you have to pivot,” Kidd said. “To get someone like Kai on a two-way is important for the 12 games we have him for. He’s got a great group of guys around him. We need him to play. He’s another seven-footer, which we need. We have had success in these type situations before.”
• Mavericks assistant Alex Jensen has emerged as one of the top candidates for the head coaching vacancy at the University of Utah, tweets Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports. Jensen played college basketball for the Utes in 1994/95 and – following a two-year hiatus – from 1997-2000.