Overlooked Klay Thompson trade detail is already handcuffing the Mavs

The free-falling Dallas Mavericks are already reeling after making the boneheaded Luka Doncic trade. After trading Doncic for less than he was worth, Anthony Davis went down during his first game with the Mavericks, then Kyrie Irving, followed by practically half of the roster being ruled out due to injury.

With the Mavericks slipping in the standings and them without Irving out for the season, it would have been fair to wonder if they were tanking, but they are so banged up that they may have to forfeit games.

That would be unprecedented with the Mavericks only having eight players available and them hard-capped. That means that they cannot sign players to contracts to help fill out their roster as they recover from a multitude of injuries. They even are running out of days that their two-way players have available, which would mean that they soon would have only six players available.

The reason why they are unable to sign more players is due to the Klay Thompson sign-and-trade that took place over the summer with the Golden State Warriors. Teams that pull such a maneuver are hard capped and unable to spend past a certain point.

That has come back to haunt the Mavericks, who are just $51,000 below the hard cap and unable to sign players to the prorated minimum until April 12th, according to ESPN's Bobby Marks.

The Dallas Mavericks risk forfeiting games due to their unprecedented injury luck.

Injuries can't be blamed on Mavericks GM Niko Harrison, but it's fair game to place blame on him for his baffling series of moves. First he traded Doncic for Davis, who isn't exactly known as an NBA Iron Man, to say the least, as well as Max Christie.

Christie has played well, but Davis has been predictably injured and has only played one game thus far despite being on the Mavericks for more than a month. Harrison also traded Quentin Grimes to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Caleb Martin, only to see Martin play a handful of games while Grimes is putting up strong numbers in Philly.

That trade also put them several million closer to the hard cap and has resulted in the situation they are in now, with them unable to sign players without exceeding the threshold. With nothing else left to do, Marks suggests that they dress injured players.

Dallas can put them on the bench in order to meet the league's player minimum requirements until they are actually healthy enough not to need to do so. That may ultimately be how Dallas skirts the rule, but even being in this situation proves that Harrison made a series of blunders that resulted in the Mavericks struggles.