Every.Single.Game.

This happens every single game. The Dallas Mavericks, who can't seem to escape injury no matter what the cost, whether it's the offseason, all-star break, one simple game on a random Friday night, the Dallas Mavericks defy the odds when it comes to who gets injured after what game, to the point where I feel like I've made this same exact video after every single game over the last several weeks, and in tonight's major loss to the Houston Rockets, the Dallas Mavericks have lost Dante Exum to a broken hand and will be out for the remainder of the season. So, in this video, we're going to take a look at what happened to Dante Exum, how this happened to Dante Exum, how bad was this game, and should they even care about their remainder of the season, or just tank it up? How's it going, everybody? My name is Marcel Martin. This is Mavericks Digest, bringing you the latest news on everything Mavericks related. And as always, if you don't want to watch this beautiful face every day on YouTube, but you still want to hear this beautiful voice every single day, you can check us out on Spotify. The link is in the description below. We upload there every single time we upload here on YouTube. So if you can't catch the video, but you still want to hear me, check me out on Spotify. I'd appreciate it greatly. But the Dallas Mavericks, or as we should honestly just change our name to now, is the Hospital Mavs. We are the hobbled team. We can't avoid an injury to save our life. Everybody gets hurt every single game, no matter what actually happens. And I think it's fair enough to say that it's very logical to assume with a very depleted roster where tonight we only played nine players, which seems a lot more than what we usually have, we're now down to eight players. And as we lower the amount of available players, Other guys have to play more minutes, which means other players are more likely to get hurt. And although that wasn't the case today, and Dante Exum is a very weird situation, he went up for a layup, got blocked, his hand hit the backboard. And that's how he broke it. Obviously, it was enough force from that block hitting his hand that caused the break. But everything was all good just a few hours ago. And I'll just throw this up here because it was reported right before the Rockets game that we did have Brandon Williams and Dante Exum, but we are still without P.J. Washington, Kai Jones, Jaden Hardy, Anthony Davis, Daniel Gafford, Derek Lively, oh, Max Kyrie Irving. The list is going on and on and on to the point where we've got more players hurt than we've got available. Absolutely insane. At first, you'd think it's just bad luck, and now it just feels like a given. It feels like every single game, we're guaranteed an injured player. The odds have to be absolutely insane for that, for the Dallas Mavericks. But just leave this up right here, because I want to talk about those that believe that we should still make a playoff push. If we can be fully healthy, or at least remotely healthy. We know Kyrie's going to be gone for a while. A lot of people believe that we can still make a deep push. I'd love to see it, but... Realistically, I don't see that happening as a lot of these players do require surgery. Kyrie, like I said, he's out for a year. Omax just got surgery. He's not going to be available for the playoffs. Dante broke his hand. He's not going to be available for the playoffs. That's three players out of the only 14 that we have that are not going to be able to participate in the play-in or playoffs, no matter how far we go. P.J., he's got a right ankle sprain. Who knows when that's going to be okay for him to play on. Kai Jones has a left quad strain. He could come back. They specifically said they have no idea when Jaden Hardy's ever going to return, so we don't even know how serious his ankle sprain is. Anthony Davis, Daniel Gafford, Derek Lively are the only players on this list that could potentially come back before the end of the season, but at this moment in time, we have no idea who's actually going to come back. Losing Dante Exum doesn't mean it's the end of the world, but I'd argue that with the remaining players, you kind of want to have Dante. Spencer Dinwiddie had an all right game today, but I like to have Dante for his defense. In some games, he definitely is more aggressive, just drives and attacks the basket. A better playmaker than Spencer Dinwiddie, some would say, a better passer. But losing Dante with this current roster of the hospital Mavs is actually a pretty big blow to this team. If this was in November or December, losing Dante, because we didn't even have Dante, it didn't feel like it was the end of the world. But for whatever reason, for the obvious reason, honestly, now it does. We just take a look right here. Shams, this is the official report. Shams tweeted out that yet another injury hit for Dallas. Maverick's guard, Dante Exum, has suffered a broken bone in his left hand. Sources tell ESPN Exum is now out indefinitely. It's absolutely insane how quickly we got that news because this came out in the middle of the game before the game was even over. Dante Exum, like I said, he went up for a layup. He got blocked. His hand hit the backboard, and I could see him kind of holding it. Maybe I thought he just hurt it a little bit. Like, oh, man, that hurts. Back on defense, no, but it was like, oh, a bone broke in my hand. And at this time, I'm not sure if this is the same hand that he had issues with over the summer. But if it is, should we keep Dante? Is Dante a player that we should really be considering long-term with these injuries piling up? He didn't really perform that well in the playoffs. He played overseas in the Olympics. He did get hurt. He messed up his hand again for us, trying to dunk, apparently, as the story goes. He was out all the way until January. He comes back and then... It just doesn't seem like Dante, who's only on a one-year minimum, is really worth keeping around if he can't keep his hands from breaking. And if we take a look right here. Just to go over the box score real quick. Najee Marshall had 21 points, 1 block, 1 steal, 3 assists, and 5 rebounds. Kessler Edwards had 12 points. He had 4 blocks, 1 steal, and 6 rebounds. Dwight Powell had 1 point, 1 block, 1 steal, 2 assists, and 2 rebounds. Klay Thompson had 5 points, 3 assists, and 9 rebounds. And Dante Exum, before going out, only playing 7 minutes, had 2 points, 1 of 3 from the floor. And off the bench, you had Caleb Martin with 8 points, 2 assists, 1 rebound. Spencer Dinwiddie with 20 points. Two assists and three rebounds. Brandon Williams, who only has three remaining games with the Dallas Mavericks until we have to decide if we want to sign him to a full contract by April 10th, had a very good game. Had 25 points, one steal, two assists, four rebounds. He shot two of four from three and 11 of 14 from the field. And in the video we dropped just the other day, Brandon Williams is obviously one of the few players that a lot of people want to see come back that do believe that he's earned a roster spot. Honestly, he would be a direct replacement for someone like Jaden Hardy. But just to finish up with a box score, Max Christie, in only 34 minutes, finished with two points, four rebounds, shot 0-4 from three, and one of 13 from the floor. So not only are we dealing with another loss to the roster of Dante Exum's broken hand, we also got the curious case of Max Christie in the broken jump shot. One of 13. It's already bad enough that we got guys that aren't healthy to play. We also got guys that apparently just aren't skilled to play. And I know, I know I was pushing the heavy propaganda of Max Christie, the next Kobe Bryant, the disciple. I know I was excited for him. He showed a lot of promise. But ever since we've been having all these injuries, his role has changed twice now as he was just coming off the bench. Now it looks like he's in a much bigger role as a starter with Dante being out. We now know that Max Christie may have just had a Linsanity run. I still think that he does have potential, but a lot of people feel like this is exactly who you are. A guy that's just going to shoot the ball, miss a whole lot of shots. You play decent defense, but I've already seen it. People calling him the next Tim Hardaway Jr. And I hope that is not the case. If we take a look right here. Like I said, what happened? His shooting has been utterly atrocious. Two points, four rebounds. One of 13 from the floor. Oh, a four from three. Absolutely horrible. Was a minus 23 in the box plus minus. And if we just go right here, another thing that we definitely want to look at is this tweet from Hoops Hype saying, hold on, we have a new record. Sixers have 96% of their payroll sidelined tonight, which is absolutely crazy. But not only that, if you just look two spots further down, it's the Dallas Mavericks. Who tonight had 61% of their entire salary sidelined. Add a little bit more because Dante after tonight. And with the Sixers or the Lakers, you could argue that some players could be back soon. Or maybe they're just resting some guys. With the Dallas Mavericks, we have no choice. We have no choice to run these very small man lineups. We have no choice but to play Max Christie when he's shooting 1 of 13. We have no one to really replace him with. He's got to be out there. We got Caleb Martin who does play great defense. But his jump shot looks broke. Although, he'll still make more points than Max Christie. It's a very odd time in the world of the Dallas Mavericks, but one thing I do want to ask you guys again is what should we do? We have 14 games left in the regular season. It really doesn't look like we're going to slide any further down, as we can't win games, but neither can the Suns. The Suns just seem to be very good at losing. They know how to tank in style. So, should we even try and compete for a play-in spot and see where we can go with this broke team with three players guaranteed not to come back? Or? You fuel up that tank, you get in the driver's seat, and you go into the lottery. Try to get someone, Cooper Flagg, although he does have an ankle sprain, he'll be fine. Cooper Flagg, Jeremiah Fears, there's a few other players out there as well. Let me know what you think in the comment section down below. But as always, we got to talk about one thing and one thing only, and I guess who stood on business? I guess if we got to decide who stood on business, I'll have to give it to Brandon Williams. Like I said, he had 25 points off the bench. He's shot very efficiently. He's only got about four games left with the Dallas Mavericks. And I really do hope that he's someone that we can keep long-term. He only has three years of NBA experience, which means he can come back on another two-way contract. Or we could just convert him to an actual regular contract. We have one roster spot. He's definitely skilled enough for it. Some people may make the argument that Kessler Edwards has earned that spot, as we have definitely leaned on him heavy to play out of position. But I think it's clear that Brandon Williams is the much better talent that we could definitely use since all of our guards are just getting injured. No Jaden Hardy, no Dante Exum, no Kyrie Irving. Brandon Williams may just get that guaranteed spot. But the final segment of the night is who is that Maverick? Well, he's on the roster, but he may not be on the roster for long. He's currently being played out of position, and he kind of looks like another player on the team. Who is that Maverick? Let me know in the comment section down below. But, that's all I got for you guys today. Thank you for making it so far into the video. Make sure to check out our Twitter and Discord. Links are in the description below. Consider becoming a channel member. We are doing a giveaway every single month on this channel. Only way to enter our giveaways is to become a channel member of any tier. But, until next time, y'all take care and drink water. Peace.