Jason Kidd on NBA's Mavericks Investigation: 'I Don't Know Anything About it'

The Dallas Mavericks head coach doesn't know any details about the NBA investigating his team.

"I don't know anything about it," Jason Kidd told reporters Sunday. "I haven't been contacted. I'm not going to comment on it."

The NBA is investigating the Mavericks' actions from Friday's contest against the Chicago Bulls in which Luka Dončić played for a single quarter and a number of other players, including Kyrie Irving, sat even though the team was still alive in the playoff race.

Tim Hardaway Jr., Maxi Kleber, Josh Green and Christian Wood also sat out the game.

"The NBA commenced an investigation today into the facts and circumstances surrounding the Dallas Mavericks' roster decisions and game conduct with respect to last night's Chicago Bulls-Mavericks game, including the motivations behind those actions," NBA spokesman Mike Bass said.

Making the playoffs was a long shot at that point.

Dallas would have needed to defeat the Bulls and the San Antonio Spurs and hope the Oklahoma City Thunder lost their season finale against the Memphis Grizzlies just to make the play-in tournament. Alas, the Bulls defeated the short-handed Mavericks 115-112 and eliminated that chance.

From a potential tanking standpoint, Dallas' 2023 first-round pick is top-10 protected. If it doesn't land in the top 10, it then goes to the New York Knicks. Perhaps not so coincidentally, losing to Chicago dropped the team to 10th from the bottom in the NBA's overall standings.

Kidd's postgame comments to the media didn't exactly dispel any notions of tanking:

"It's not so much waving the white flag. Decisions sometimes are hard in this business, and you have to make hard decisions. We're trying to build a championship team, and sometimes you got to take a step back.

"Understanding with this decision, this is maybe a step back, but hopefully it leads to going forward."

At this point, all eyes will be on the NBA draft lottery on May 16 with the Mavericks' pick something of a secondary storyline as other teams hope for the top selection.