Mavericks Staff Movements
The Dallas Mavericks are making significant changes to their health and performance group for the third consecutive offseason. General Manager Nico Harrison has fired head athletic trainer Dionne Calhoun and director of athletic performance Keith Belton, among others, according to sources.
These layoffs come after a season plagued by injuries for the Mavericks, who finished with a 39-43 record and were eliminated in the last play-in game of the Western Conference.
Calhoun spent 21 seasons in Dallas and was promoted to the position of head athletic trainer in 2019. He was one of the last members of the staff of former Mavs director of health and performance, Casey Smith, who was fired in August 2023 and hired by the New York Knicks as vice president of sports medicine last summer.
Harrison hired Belton, a former NFL fullback who had been football performance director at UCLA, last summer after firing the Mavs’ longtime athletic performance director, Jeremy Holsopple.
Belton did not have the certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association that the NBA collective bargaining agreement stipulates are required to be employed as a strength coach for a team.
There was significant tension between Belton and first-year director of health and performance, Johann Bilsborough, who remains employed by the Mavericks. The organization’s human resources department investigated a loud and heated verbal confrontation that took place at the team’s training facility between Belton and Bilsborough.
That discussion originated from a disagreement regarding the treatment of Dallas center Dereck Lively II, who underwent an intense return-to-play training under Belton’s supervision the day before a CT scan revealed that the center had a stress fracture in his right ankle, an injury that kept him out of action for three months.
Harrison declined to comment.
