Dallas Keeps Swinging the Ax in Health Department, and This Time Bilsborough Is Out

The Dallas Mavericks just fired their director of health and performance Johann Bilsborough on Monday, marking the fourth straight year the franchise has blown up that department. Yeah, you read that right. Four years in a row of major upheaval in one of the most critical areas of an NBA organization.

The timing is rough: the dismissal came the day after the Mavs' injury-plagued 2025-26 season ended. The team failed to make the playoffs for the second consecutive year, a brutal reality when you remember they were in the NBA Finals back in 2024. Something clearly isn't working, and the front office decided Bilsborough had to go.

A Fresh Start After Two Turbulent Years

Bilsborough only spent two seasons in Dallas, and it was bumpy from the start. The Australian sports scientist with a doctorate came in as the hand-picked replacement for Casey Smith after former GM Nico Harrison fired Smith back in August 2023, ending Smith's two-decade run with the franchise. Now Smith is over in New York with the Knicks as vice president of sports medicine, and guess what: the Knicks just won the NBA Trainers Association's Training Staff of the Year award last season. Smith helped Dallas win that same award in 2020-21 and 2021-22. Hard to not notice that contrast.

The Mavs' decision to part ways with Bilsborough comes down to one thing: they want a fresh start and a new ideology in their health and performance group. Translation: something has been broken and they're hoping a new voice fixes it.

The Chaos Behind the Scenes

Things got messier at the end of last season when the Mavericks fired athletic performance director Keith Belton, who had clashed with Bilsborough over how to handle player recoveries. There was even a heated confrontation at the practice facility after Belton put center Dereck Lively II through an intense return-to-play workout a day before a CT scan revealed a stress fracture in the big man's ankle. That kind of situation tells you everything about the dysfunction.

Governor Patrick Dumont is looking to have a new hire in place by mid-May once the team fills its lead basketball operations executive position. The expectation is that position will get filled first, then that person will bring in their own health and performance director.

This is year four of major changes in this department. At some point, you have to wonder if the organizational culture around health and safety needs a complete reset, not just new faces.

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.