Let the record show that Anthony Davis met the moment. Before he could even put on a Dallas Mavericks uniform, AD spoke of the inexplicable trade that brought him to Dallas—and sent Luka Doncic to Los Angeles—with an empathy and understanding that have somehow eluded the most prominent Mavericks officials.
“I get who Luka was to this franchise, to the city,” he told reporters at his introductory press conference. “I’m never going to downplay that.”
And when it finally came time to take the court, Davis set out to prove his stardom in its own right. He totaled 26 points, 16 rebounds, seven assists, and three blocks in 31 dominant minutes against the Rockets, a statement undercut only by the fact that Davis was forced to leave the game with a noncontact injury. One minute AD was finishing lobs and canning 3s, winning over a bewildered home crowd; the next, he was doubled over in obvious pain.
It’s tempting, in a moment this bleak, to interpret what happened to Davis as a terrible omen—proof of a curse, even, visited upon Dallas for trading away a beloved superstar in the dead of night. But this was far worse than a curse: It was entirely predictable. Davis has dealt with adductor strains throughout his career, and he suffered this particular strain not even two weeks before suiting up for the Mavs. A rushed trade led to a rushed debut, and now AD could miss upward of a month.
This, historically, is who Davis has been. Last season was the healthiest of his career: a triumph that earned him second-team All-NBA honors and made him a headliner for first-team All-Defense. Yet even with that campaign included, Davis missed an average of 24 games during his five full seasons as a Laker. If he misses a full month with this adductor strain, he’ll likely wind up somewhere around that same benchmark this season—ruling him out for the major NBA awards. There is so much verifiable proof that AD is one of the best basketball players in the world, yet with that comes the undeniable fact that his career has been shaped by injury.
That’s why the anonymously sourced fearmongering over Luka’s own conditioning and injuries never really passed muster. Davis is a remarkable player, but there’s no way around the fact that he’s significantly older than Doncic and has an even more concerning injury history—to say nothing of the reality that Luka’s play is simply a cut above. It’s not a fair comparison, but it’s one the Mavs forced the day they identified Davis, specifically, as their desired return for a franchise player they never should have moved.
AD didn’t ask for any of this. He didn’t ask to be traded, and it shouldn’t be his responsibility to validate Nico Harrison’s decisions. Yet because of these strange circumstances, Davis was the only person who could quiet some of the angst in Dallas over the weekend—and for a few quarters, he did. Now the Mavericks, who have picked up two straight wins but lost nine of their past 15 games, will have to find ways to win without him or Doncic. It’s a tall order in a competitive Western Conference, particularly as Dallas shifts into a high-leverage stretch of its schedule. The Mavs sit at 28-25, good for eighth place in the West but with little separation from the next three teams in line. Two of those challengers (Sacramento and Golden State) will play Dallas two times apiece in the coming weeks, with potentially massive implications; those games could be the difference between the Mavs making the postseason and missing the play-in entirely. All the while, Doncic is expected to make his debut in Laker gold on Monday, just in time for the stretch run.
Davis, on the other hand, likely won’t be in uniform when the Mavs play against Luka and the Lakers for the first time on February 25, which complicates what will already be one of the most charged games of the entire season. And if AD takes longer to rehab his adductor strain than anticipated, he could easily miss a date with the Suns and a pair of games against the Spurs—two more opponents trying to box out the Mavs for a spot in the play-in.
There’s no blame for Davis in missing time, yet the stakes of his arrival have pressurized his absence. These are crucial games for a Dallas team that has made winning now its only priority. Harrison has tried to sell the trade for AD as an attempt to make the most of the next three or four years, as if Doncic didn’t just take the Mavs all the way to the NBA Finals. But who’s to say what those years could look like for Davis? The aging curve isn’t kind to bigs, especially those who rely on exceptional mobility and athleticism. Staying healthy won’t get any easier for a player with a long history of lower body issues: stress fractures and bone spurs and knee problems, to say nothing of his current adductor injuries. Davis will likely make his return to the court on the other side of his 32nd birthday. Winning in the near term will mean beating the clock, the odds, and, hell, maybe even the karmic balance of the basketball universe after all.
It didn’t have to be this way. The Mavs had a transcendent playmaker who gave them considerable room for error, and they had every reason in the world to see his development through. They opted instead for this. So much depends on Davis now, feeding urgency into a process that clearly cannot be hurried. The Mavs have a fleeting competitive window, but it hasn’t even been wedged open. So it goes with the Anthony Davis era in Dallas, now officially underway and also paused indefinitely.
Rob Mahoney
Rob covers the NBA and pop culture for The Ringer. He previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated.
