Dallas Mavericks center Daniel Gafford suffered a sprained right knee and will be reevaluated in two weeks, as announced by the team on Tuesday. This injury is another blow to an interior game that was already weakened by several absences. It's been tough for them since the trade of Luka Doncic.
Gafford was injured early in the overtime loss to the Sacramento Kings on Monday, leaving the game after playing only ten minutes. The situation in the Mavericks' paint was already quite complicated due to the absences of Anthony Davis after getting injured in his debut and Dereck Lively.
The Dallas team recently acquired Davis in a trade that sent Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. General manager Nico Harrison had expressed his intention to build a team with a dominant presence in the paint, counting on several big men in the rotation. However, injuries have delayed that visionary plan. Lively suffered a stress fracture in his right foot last month, and his recovery is estimated between two and three months. Davis, on the other hand, is dealing with a left adductor strain that will keep him off the court for several weeks, according to sources close to the franchise. Powell is also sidelined due to a hip injury with no defined timeline for his return.
In the absence of the team's main interior players, young Olivier-Maxence Prosper assumed the center role in the loss to Sacramento, logging 34 minutes on the court. P.J. Washington, who has been dealing with an ankle injury, could be another option to play as a center in smaller lineups once he is available.
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