Morez Johnson Jr. Questionable for Saturday With Shin Injury

The Dallas Mavericks might be down a body in the frontcourt this weekend. According to Underdog NBA, power forward Morez Johnson Jr. is officially listed as questionable for Saturday's game with a shin injury.

Ah, the questionable tag. It is the most useless, anxiety-inducing word in the modern NBA vocabulary. It essentially means the team medical staff looked at his leg, shrugged, and decided to make it a game-time problem.

"Underdog NBA reported: 'Morez Johnson Jr. (shin) listed questionable Saturday.'"

Shin injuries are notoriously tricky. They aren't usually the kind of catastrophic issue that ruins a season, but they are exactly the kind of nagging pain that makes running up and down a hardwood floor feel like stepping on Legos for 48 minutes.

For the Mavericks, losing Johnson Jr. would force a quick shuffle in the rotation. Dallas relies on its bigs to do the dirty work, and missing a physical presence at the four spot means someone else on the bench has to step up and absorb those minutes.

If you are holding a ticket on any Mavericks props or trying to set a weekend fantasy lineup, this is where the waiting game begins. You are now entirely at the mercy of a pregame shootaround tweet from a beat writer.

Expect the Mavericks to play coy until the absolute last second. Until we see Johnson Jr. actually going through warmups without wincing, treat that Dallas frontcourt rotation as a giant mystery.