Casey Smith Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Atlantic Notes: Towns, Knicks, Holiday, Porzingis, Sixers

May 19th, 2025 at 8:12pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Karl-Anthony Towns gave the Pacers fits this season and the Knicks hope that continues over the next two weeks. He averaged 30.3 points, 12.0 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 46.7 percent from three-point range in 36.5 minutes per contest vs. Indiana, Zach Braziller of the New York Post notes, with the Knicks winning two of three regular-season matchups between the Eastern Conference finalists.

Towns will likely be matched up against Myles Turner, who averaged 19.5 points and 2.5 blocks per game against New York this season.

We have more from the Atlantic Division:

The Knicks have been named the 2024-25 NBATA Athletic Training Staff of the Year, Mike Curtis of the Dallas Morning News tweets. New York’s training staff is led by Casey Smith, VP of Sports Medicine. The staff also includes senior athletic trainer Heather Mau. Smith and Mau are former members of the Mavs’ training staff, Curtis notes. Smith was fired in 2023 by Dallas GM Nico Harrison.
All the extensions that the Celtics handed out last offseason could prove detrimental unless the front office can find a good trade offer for Jrue Holiday or Kristaps Porzingis, Brian Robb of MassLive.com opines. Holiday still has value but his production tailed off this season and he’s owed $104MM over the next three years. Porzingis has an expiring contract but has contributed little in the last two postseason due to injury and illness. A more dramatic reset for the franchise could be required if shedding these big-money contracts ends up costing Boston valuable assets, Robb concludes.
While there has been some speculation that the Sixers will shop the No. 3 overall pick, Kyle Neubeck of PHLY Sports hears an entirely different story. A source told him that the front office isn’t interested in packaging that pick to acquire a veteran star (Twitter link). The team has spoken publicly about wanting to add more youth and athleticism to its core, Neubeck notes, and the No. 3 pick will provide an opportunity to do just that.

Mavs Rumors: Health/Performance Team, Doncic, Dumont, Harrison, Kidd

April 22nd, 2025 at 4:01pm CST by Luke Adams

Within an in-depth story focused on the changes made with the Mavericks‘ health and performance department in recent years, Tim MacMahon of ESPN shares several details that reflect poorly on the team’s current management, starting with the firing of longtime director of health and performance Casey Smith in 2023.

As MacMahon explains, several sources believe general manager Nico Harrison fired Smith – who was close with longtime Mavs star Dirk Nowitzki as well as Luka Doncic – because he wasn’t enough of a yes-man.

“(Harrison) was 100 percent threatened by him,” a team source told MacMahon. “He’s going to show that I’m in charge and nobody else can question that.”

MacMahon also reports that the relationship between new director of player health and performance Johann Bilsborough and athletic performance director Keith Belton has been frosty, writing that Bilsborough doesn’t respect Belton’s acumen. Belton was hired by the Mavs first, with Bilsborough later hired as his superior.

A January disagreement over how Dereck Lively‘s foot injury was being handled led to a “loud, heated confrontation” between the two men, according to MacMahon, who hears from one source that the altercation was “coming for a long time.”

Here’s more on the Mavs:

Both MacMahon and Grant Afseth of Dallas Hoops Journal (Substack link) say the calf strain Doncic sustained on Christmas Day was a source of major tension between the Mavs and the guard’s camp. The team believed that Doncic could be back in two to three weeks and Harrison thought the injury was related to Doncic’s conditioning, whereas the star guard’s camp was adamant that he needed to sit out for six weeks to fully recover and believed the injury stemmed from the fact that he returned too soon from a previous heel issue. “That deepened the divide,” a source told ESPN.
In the wake of the Doncic trade, Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont no longer views Harrison as having “irreproachable basketball expertise,” sources tell Tim Cato of DLLS Sports (subscription required). Dumont has been especially frustrated that Harrison either didn’t foresee or didn’t better prepare him for the extreme negative reaction to the trade from the fan base, Cato adds.
Within the same story, Cato cites sources who say that Jason Kidd “resented” the Doncic trade, even though the Mavs head coach shared some of Harrison’s frustrations about Doncic’s work habits. Kidd felt he was being asked to reinvent a roster and a system that had previously been built around Doncic, Cato explains, noting that the coach’s frustration was a factor in his decision to skip a mandatory press conference in February on the same day Doncic made his Lakers debut.