Simmons: Was in ‘bad place’; no help from Sixers

The Dallas Mavericks are embarking on a critical season after missing the playoffs and play-in altogether last season. The decision from the Mavericks to demote longtime athletic trainer Casey Smith has created an extra layer of uncertainty to their situation.

“There’s weird stuff going on with the Mavericks as far as not involving the roster, [but] involving the organization,” said Tim MacMahon on Friday’s Hoop Collective Podcast. “This banishment of Casey Smith, who is probably the most respected athletic trainer in the NBA. [He] was overseeing that whole group, basically their whole medical group. He wan an essential part of the front office. Put it this way, when the Mavericks sent a contingent to Slovenia for Luka’s supermax press conference, Casey Smith was there. He’s been on the bench for 20 years. He’s not going to be on the bench this year. He’s not going to be a traveler. It is not his decision.

“There’s a lot of people… There’s a combination of people being pissed and people being concerned with the Mavericks’ organization about that.

“I’m not going to get into why that decision was made because I honestly haven’t gotten a straight answer. I’ve gotten a lot of second hand answers. And I’ve gotten two kind of different second hand answers, neither of which are great.

“And then you also have Scott Tomlin who has been there forever. By the way, Casey Smith and Scott Tomlin are like Dirk’s best friends. Scott Tomlin, longtime PR guy, is actually going to work for Dirk. He’s going to be the executive director of Dirk’s foundation. Leaving right after they get home from this trip. A decision made in the wake of Casey Smith’s reassignment. I don’t think that decision is made, especially with this timing, if everything is hunky dory I’ll put it to you like that.

“There’s a lot of weirdness going on with this organization right now.”

In 2016, the NBA saw the salary cap spike from $70 million to $94.1 million as new TV rights deals kicked in. That caused a scenario where the 2016 free agent class received contracts that were out of balance with the rest of the league.

With the NBA set to sign new media rights deals in 2025, another cap spike was looming. In order to avoid another spike, the NBA and NBPA have agreed to cap smoothing in the new CBA.

The smoothing agreement will see cap increases limited to 10%, while pushing any additional percentage increase into subsequent years. By smoothing out the increases, that should provide more balance to free agent classes over multiple years.