Dallas Mavericks Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Southwest Notes: Nunez, Castle, Morant, Lemons, Russell

October 1st, 2025 at 9:51am CST by Dana Gauruder

Spurs draft-and-stash prospect Juan Nunez is expected be sidelined six months after undergoing right knee surgery on Tuesday, BasketNews relays.

FC Barcelona announced that a meniscal cyst was removed from Nunez’s knee, and the suture points of the meniscus from the first arthroscopy performed on March 11 were reinforced. The 21-year-old averaged 5.0 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 3.4 assists per game last season in the EuroLeague.

Nunez was selected with the 36th overall pick of the 2024 draft and was acquired by San Antonio in a draft-night trade with Indiana.

We have more on the Southwest Division:

The Spurs’ backcourt plans have been put on hold due to injuries, Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News notes. De’Aaron Fox, who signed a four-year, maximum-salary extension this offseason, injured his hamstring during offseason workouts and has already been deemed doubtful for the Oct. 22 regular-season opener against Dallas. Dylan Harper, the second pick of this year’s draft, is rehabbing from left thumb surgery. That leaves Stephon Castle as the primary ball-handler in the early going. “I think what he has already done is just something we want to continue to grow him in,” coach Mitch Johnson said of last season’s Rookie of the Year. “He has already shown the chops to do it.”
Grizzlies star guard Ja Morant intends to negotiate his next contract without an agent, according to Drew Hill of the Daily Memphian (subscription required; hat tip to RealGM). Morant was previously represented by Jim Hill and Mike Miller but parted ways with Miller in June. Morant, who signed a five-year, $197MM contract which expires after the 2027/28 season, has started an advisory firm with family ties, according to Joe Vardon of The Athletic. Phil Morant, his uncle, is the chief managing director of a new Memphis-based advisory firm, ILOC. His mother, Jamie Morant, is also an employee of the firm run on a day-to-day basis by former head of Grizzlies security Kevin Helms.
The Rockets have added Robbie Lemons as an assistant coach, Danielle Lerner of the Houston Chronicle tweets. Lemons previously worked on Mike Brown’s staff in Sacramento, specializing in coaching analytics and strategy.
D’Angelo Russell, signed to a two-year contract by the Mavericks as a free agent, doesn’t want to be just a stopgap until Kyrie Irving returns from a knee injury, he said this week, per Grant Afseth of Dallas Hoops Journal. “Obviously, with Kai out, there’s minutes available, but I’m not looking at it like I’m just holding down the fort,” Russell said. “I want to establish myself here, be consistent, and help us win games. When Kai comes back, I’ll adjust, but my mindset is to make an impact from day one.”

Mavs Notes: Starters, Kyrie, Smith, Robinson-Earl, Coaches, Lively

September 29th, 2025 at 10:20pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

The Mavericks made one very significant roster addition over the summer, drafting No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg out of Duke. But the club’s starting five has yet to be determined heading into training camp, per Mike Curtis of The Dallas Morning News (Twitter link).

“This is competition,” head coach Jason Kidd said. “We’re going to look at a lot of combinations.”

Kidd has indicated that everyone aside from All-Star guard Kyrie Irving is expected to fully participate in practice, tweets Christian Clark of The Athletic. For now, free agent signing D’Angelo Russell is expected to start in Irving’s stead.

There’s more out of Dallas:

Irving continues to improve from the ACL tear he suffered last March. Kidd, however, offered a measured take on his recovery to date, per Tim MacMahon of ESPN. “He is doing quite well, as we can see, but he’s not ahead of schedule, and so let’s not say that,” Kidd said. “That’s unfair to him and to the Mavs because it’s not true. Is he on schedule? It looks like it.” Mavs president of basketball operations Nico Harrison had suggested in July that the star guard was “ahead of schedule” in his rehab process.
New Mavericks additions Dennis Smith Jr. and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl signed non-guaranteed Exhibit 9 agreements, per Keith Smith of Spotrac (Twitter link). The agreements protect the team in the event that either player sustains an injury in training camp or the preseason and don’t count against the cap unless they carry over to the regular season.
Kidd weighed in on Dallas losing assistant coaches Sean Sweeney, Jared Dudley, and Alex Jensen to other teams this summer, Curtis tweets. “The guys who left will be missed,” Kidd said. “Sweeney, Duds and Alex… It’s a compliment that we must be doing something right. Not wrong.”
Third-year Mavericks center Dereck Lively II indicated during his media day session that he has grown this summer, according to Marc Stein of The Stein Line (Twitter link). Lively, who was listed at 7’1″ last season, claims he is currently 7’2″ or 7’3″.

Anthony Davis Will Wear Protective Glasses For Remainder Of Career

September 29th, 2025 at 12:58pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Like Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did in the 1970s and 1980s, Anthony Davis will not take the court without protective eyewear. The Mavericks big man will require protective glasses the rest of his career, per his doctor’s mandate, according to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon (Twitter link).

Davis underwent a procedure in July to repair a detached retina in his right eye. He reportedly played through “multiple hits to the face” last season.

Most notably, the big man visited an ophthalmologist last November after getting poked in his other eye — reporting at the time indicated he was experiencing swelling and had difficulty keeping that eye open. That injury, which occurred when Davis was a Laker, was referred to last fall as a corneal abrasion and didn’t cost him any games.

Davis says his vision is now clear and he has no limitations entering camp, MacMahon tweets. However, there is significant redness in his right eye, which he says is caused by eye drops that he has to use.

Davis, who was traded from Los Angeles to Dallas in the controversial Luka Doncic blockbuster in February, was only able to make nine appearances during his first half-season as a Maverick due to an adductor injury.

The 32-year-old averaged 20.0 points, 10.1 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and 2.2 blocks in just 29.6 minutes per night in those nine outings. He’s entering the first year of a three-year extension he signed with the Lakers in 2023. It’s worth approximately $175MM and includes a third-year player option.

Dennis Smith Jr. Signs With Mavericks

September 26th, 2025 at 3:12pm CST by Earnest Marshall

September 26: Smith has officially signed with the Mavs, the team announced today (via Twitter).

September 18: The Mavericks are signing Dennis Smith Jr. to a one-year contract, according to Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link). Dallas selected Smith with the No. 9 overall pick in the 2017 draft and he spent the first season and a half of his career there.

Dallas has 15 players on standard contracts before signing Smith, including Brandon Williams, who is only guaranteed for $200K until opening night.

Smith’s contract is presumably non-guaranteed or partially guaranteed, setting up an opportunity for him to earn a spot on the opening-night roster if he performs well enough in training camp.

Before the Mavericks waived and stretched Olivier-Maxence Prosper‘s contract to bring back Dante Exum, they reportedly toyed with the idea of moving Jaden Hardy. It’s unclear whether that’s still on the table at all, but if the Mavericks wanted to keep both Smith and/or Williams, it would mean moving Hardy or another player via trade to clear up a spot.

A 6’2″ guard out of NC State, Smith averaged 14.5 points and 4.9 assists in 101 games (all starts) with the Mavericks from 2017-19. He was moved at the 2019 deadline to the Knicks in exchange for Kristaps Porzingis. Since then, he hasn’t played more than 58 games for a franchise, having become a journeyman guard from 2019-24.

Smith had perhaps his most impressive season of his career in 2022/23, when he emerged as one of the premier guard defenders in the league while playing for the Hornets and averaging 8.8 points and 4.8 assists per contest. However, the Hornets didn’t bring him back and he spent the following season for Brooklyn before not playing in the NBA last season.

In all, Smith holds career averages of 9.7 points, 4.2 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.2 steals across 326 career games (152 starts).

Mavericks Sign Jeremiah Robinson-Earl

September 26th, 2025 at 3:11pm CST by Eli Cohen

September 26: Robinson-Earl is officially a Maverick, the team announced in a press release (Twitter link).

September 21: The Mavericks are in the process of signing Jeremiah Robinson-Earl to a training camp deal, reports Marc Stein of The Stein Line (Twitter link). While Stein doesn’t specify the terms, the deal will likely be an Exhibit 10 contract.

Robinson-Earl is a four-year NBA veteran who has spent two seasons with the Thunder and two with the Pelicans after being drafted 32nd overall by the Knicks, who were selecting on behalf of Oklahoma City.

He played a career-high 66 games for New Orleans last season, averaging 6.3 points and 4.8 rebounds in 18.8 minutes per night while shooting 34.1% from three.

This would mark the 21st and final training camp roster spot the Mavs have to offer. Dallas has a good amount of depth at the big man positions, with Anthony Davis, Cooper Flagg, Daniel Gafford, P.J. Washington, Dereck Lively II, and Dwight Powell all expected to play rotation roles at the four and/or five.

Stein notes (via Twitter) the lack of roster space for Robinson-Earl, but adds that the 24-year-old chose to accept a non-guaranteed offer from Dallas rather than going overseas, where there was interest in his services.

Mavericks Waive D’Moi Hodge

September 24th, 2025 at 6:10pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

The Mavericks have waived guard D’Moi Hodge ahead of team training camp, according to the NBA’s player transaction log.

He had been signed to a non-guaranteed deal last week. While the terms of that contract weren’t divulged, it almost certainly contained Exhibit 10 language.

Hodge went undrafted out of Missouri in 2023, but latched on with the Lakers via a two-way deal. He appeared in just seven games for Los Angeles, averaging 2.0 PPG and 0.7 APG in 5.9 MPG. The 6’4″ wing averaged 12.6 PPG, 4.6 APG, 2.0 SPG and 1.6 APG in 30 games for the South Bay Lakers and Rip City Remix, Portland’s G League affiliate.

Last season, Hodge suited up for Greek League squad Aris Thessaloniki. He notched averages of 7.1 PPG, 1.9 APG, and 1.5 SPG across 15 EuroCup bouts.

Keith Smith of Spotrac tweets that Hodge is expected to join the Texas Legends, Dallas’ NBAGL affiliate. If he sticks with the Legends for at least 60 days, he’ll be eligible for a bonus worth as much as $85,300.

Stein’s Latest: Warriors, Kuminga, Wizards, Bailey, THT, Davis

September 23rd, 2025 at 7:24am CST by Luke Adams

As Marc Stein writes in his latest Substack article for The Stein Line, the Warriors‘ training camp will tip off a week from today (September 30), while the deadline for Jonathan Kuminga to accept his qualifying offer arrives one day later (October 1).

That means that if Kuminga’s decision goes down to the wire, the Warriors may open camp with a significant portion of their eventual roster missing. The club is currently carrying just nine players on standard contracts and has opted not to fill the five remaining non-Kuminga roster spots until the restricted free agent’s situation is resolved in order to maximize cap flexibility.

According to Stein, the expectation around the NBA is that the five players who eventually fill the remaining third of Golden State’s roster will be Al Horford, De’Anthony Melton, Gary Payton II, Seth Curry, and second-round pick Will Richard. In that scenario, Horford would be signed using the taxpayer mid-level exception, while the others would receive minimum-salary deals.

As for what happens with Kuminga, Stein says he’d be surprised if the 22-year-old sacrifices $40MM-ish in guaranteed money by signing his one-year, $8MM qualifying offer instead of accepting a reported three-year, $75MM proposal that includes a third-year team option, though he cautions that’s just informed speculation rather than sourced information.

Here’s more from Stein:

The belief around the NBA since June’s draft is that the Wizards – who held the No. 6 overall pick – were Ace Bailey‘s preferred landing spot, says Stein. Utah ultimately drafted Bailey at No. 5. Given their apparent interest in Bailey, it raised some eyebrows when the Wizards signed Sharife Cooper to a two-way contract last week, according to Stein. Cooper, who had been out of the NBA since the 2021/22 season, is the son of Bailey’s manager Omar Cooper.
Although six-year NBA veteran Talen Horton-Tucker officially signed a two-year contract with the Turkish team Fenerbahce over the weekend, the expectation is that he’ll try to return to the NBA next summer if his first year in Europe goes well, per Stein. That suggests Horton-Tucker’s deal includes an opt-out clause after year one.
After reporting on Saturday that Mavericks star Anthony Davis had taken part in some five-on-five scrimmages for the first time since undergoing eye surgery in July, Stein cautions that Dallas will likely take a cautious approach with the big man once camp officially gets underway, since “pickup game intensity cannot compare to training camp intensity.”

Anthony Davis Takes Part In Five-on-Five Scrimmages

September 20th, 2025 at 5:01pm CST by Arthur Hill

Anthony Davis participated in five-on-five games this week, according to Marc Stein of The Stein Line (Twitter link), who adds that it’s believed to be Davis’ first “game-speed action” since he underwent eye surgery in July.

The Mavericks‘ big man had a procedure to repair a detached retina, which was reportedly caused by “multiple hits to the face” last season. He was projected to be ready for training camp at the time of the operation, but no medical updates have been issued since then.

Davis’ optical issues began last November when he was still with the Lakers. He visited an ophthalmologist after getting poked in the left eye during a game, which caused swelling and difficulty keeping the eye open.

Davis only appeared in nine games after being traded to Dallas in early February, but that was due to an adductor injury rather than anything to do with his eyes. He averaged 20.0 points, 10.1 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 2.2 blocks in just 29.6 minutes per night in those nine contests.

This week’s scrimmages don’t guarantee that Davis will be a full participant when training camp begins September 30, but they’re definitely a positive sign. Davis made his 10th All-Star appearance last season, and the Mavs are hoping that his improved health, along with the addition of No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg, will lead them back to the playoffs.

Southwest Notes: D. Smith, J. Jackson, Spurs, Nowitzki, Flagg

September 20th, 2025 at 1:35pm CST by Dana Gauruder

While Dennis Smith Jr. rejoining the Mavericks makes for a nice storyline, it’s unlikely the veteran guard will make the 15-man roster out of training camp, Marc Stein of The Stein Line tweets. Smith is signing a one-year deal with Dallas, the team that made him the No. 9 pick of the 2017 draft. However, it’s likely to be only a training camp contract and the Mavericks already have 14 players on fully guaranteed deals, with Brandon Williams on a partial guarantee.

Among Dallas’ motivations for signing Smith, according to Stein, was ensuring he receives an Exhibit 10 bonus if he reports to the G League. That means Smith, who didn’t play in the league last season, will likely wind up with the Texas Legends.

We have more from the Southwest Division:

Grizzlies big man Jaren Jackson Jr. says he’s progressing well from turf toe surgery, though it’s uncertain whether he’ll be ready to play by the season opener. “I’m aiming for whatever my body is telling me, but I’m progressing the right way,” Jackson told Michael Wallace of GrindCityMedia.com. “I’m feeling good. I’m doing what I need to do. Every day has been a building block, so I’m just trying to make it to whatever (timeframe). I think everybody is going to be happy.”
San Antonio’s City Council will hold a key vote next week on a proposed new arena for the Spurs, according to Paul Fogerty of Spurs Talk. The cost of the arena is projected to be $1.3-$1.5 billion with the city contributing up to $489MM.
Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki believes Cooper Flagg will live up to his billing as a franchise-altering talent, he told Christian Clark of The Athletic. “The hype is real, for sure,” Nowitzki said. “I’m not the biggest college sports watcher in general, whether that’s basketball or any sport, but of course I checked out Cooper. Sky is the limit, honestly. What I saw, just the way he reads the game already at that age. (He’s) barely 18, athletic, (has) skills. I heard his work ethic is through the roof. Everything I saw and heard is he’s the real deal.”

Mavericks Sign D’Moi Hodge To Deal

September 19th, 2025 at 4:59pm CST by Eli Cohen

The Mavericks have signed free agent guard D’Moi Hodge, according to Grant Afseth of Dallas Hoops Journal (via Twitter). The terms of the deal were not revealed, but it’s likely a non-guaranteed Exhibit 10 contract.

Hodge played seven games with the Lakers during the 2023/24 season after going undrafted in 2023. He averaged 2.0 points in 5.9 minutes during that time, then played last season for Aris Thessaloniki in the Greek League, averaging 7.1 points, 1.9 assists, and 1.5 steals in 15 EuroCup games.

Hodge has struggled with consistency as a shooter, but did make 35.4% of his three-point attempts in 30 G League games during his rookie season.

Should he be waived by the Mavericks and proceed to spend at least 60 days with the team’s G League affiliate, the Texas Legends, Hodge could earn a bonus worth up to $85,300.

Once Dennis Smith Jr.‘s contract is officially finalized, Dallas will have a full 21-man offseason roster.