Davis played just nine regular-season games with the Mavericks in the 2024-25 campaign, and he’ll always be tied to one of the worst trades in sports history.
Anthony Davis was crammed into a tight spot upon his arrival in Dallas in February. Not only was he injured (again) after the healthiest season of his career in 2023-24, when he missed just six games for the Los Angeles Lakers. He hadn’t managed 60 games since the 2019-20 campaign at that point, and hadn’t played more than 70 since two years before that.
What the Dallas Mavericks found after the trade that brought Davis, Max Christie and a far-off first-round pick to town in exchange for the generational, supernova talent of Luka Dončić is that level of availability is unfortunately the exception with Davis. The 76 games he played in 2023-24 did not establish a new rule going forward.
Who could have seen it coming that Davis would only manage nine regular-season games in a Mavs uniform this year? Apparently not team general manager Nico Harrison, who doesn’t think he should be judged by the rash of injuries the Mavericks experienced this year, even as anonymous sources within the organization ascribe Harrison’s motivation to deal Dončić to his distaste for Dončić’s own injury history, his perceived level of effort on defense and his perceived weight issues.
The Mavericks’ season began to trend right off the edge of a cliff as soon as Davis injured his adductor muscle after less than three quarters of action with Dallas. The training and medical staff that Harrison replaced longtime Mavericks director of health and performance Casey Smith with in 2023 cleared Davis to play on Feb. 8 against the Houston Rockets, his first game since leaving a game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Jan. 28 with an abdominal muscle strain.
Season in Review
Davis missed just four games before that fateful Feb. 8 return. He looked like he was trying to prove some fans and commentators wrong for two and a half quarters, shooting 10-of-18 from the field, including 2-of-2 from 3-point range, for 26 points, 16 rebounds, seven assists and three blocked shots before leaving with an adductor injury (yes, that’s another abdominal muscle) midway through the third quarter.
ESPN’s Tim MacMahon’s end-of-season tell-all article included that choice to bring Davis back on Feb. 8 as one of a few instances of questionable injury management by the current medical and training staff since Harrison informed Smith his contract would not be renewed while Smith was away from the team with his ailing mother at the time. Davis would not suit up again for the Mavs until March 24.
Dallas was basically out of the running in the Western Conference at that point, holding a 34-37 record going into the last 11 games of the year. Davis would play in eight of those last 11 regular-season games, followed by two in the Play-In Tournament: a 120-106 win at the Sacramento Kings before a loss at the Memphis Grizzlies by the same score. Neither Play-In game played as close as the final 14-point margin.
Harrison never gave Davis a chance at being embraced by the Mavericks fanbase by including him in the worst trade in NBA history. Injuries, both his own and those spread throughout the roster, never let him get in a rhythm with a team that could have won more than they lost when healthy. The Mavs’ team training and medical personnel may have contributed to the fact that he never had a real shot at success here this year as well. And maybe the fans aren’t blameless here either.
Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images
Davis has received the requisite cheers and applause from fans in the arena when he makes plays, but fans in general are having a hard time latching onto Davis as the team’s new marquee attraction in the wake of Dončić’s abrupt departure. Frankly, as the season devolved into a basketball nightmare down the stretch of the regular season, Mavericks fans were having trouble mustering any interest at all in watching this team, whether Davis was or wasn’t on the floor. He may never receive anywhere near the adulation he has become accustomed to over his 12-year NBA career while he’s in Dallas.
But make no mistake, if he’s not ever truly embraced by Mavs’ fandom, it will be as much for the fact that he’s simply not a 1A player in the NBA anymore, as it is for fans’ lingering resentments over the Dončić trade. It’s not that you can’t build a winner around Davis at this point in his career (albeit with a ridiculously short window) — it’s that he’s been bypassed on the top tier of elite NBA talent by guys like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis Antetokuonmpo, Jayson Tatum, Anthony Edwards and, yes, the much younger stud for whom Davis was traded this year.
Davis averaged 24.7 points, grabbed 11.6 rebounds and blocked 2.2 shots in 51 games played for both the Lakers and the Mavericks in 2024-25. In his nine games with the Mavs, those numbers were down substantially, most likely as a result of working his way back from injury. He averaged 20 points and 10.1 rebounds in a Mavericks uniform, while his blocked shot numbers stayed consistent. He looked tired and/or a step slow in some of his games with Dallas.
Will that change when he’s a year older? He’ll have a full offseason under his belt, so maybe those numbers revert to what he was putting up with the Lakers. But the bigger question is, will it even matter if they do? Kyrie Irving will be on the shelf until at least January 2026 after a torn ACL, suffered in a blowout loss to the Sacramento Kings on March 3. The depth the Mavericks featured in the 2024-25 season will be strained to say the least next season, and that’s before any potential trades and/or free agent attrition that may come to pass this offseason.
Best game
Photo by Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images
Let’s handle this in two parts. Davis’ best game with the Mavericks came on April 2 in a 120-118 win over the Atlanta Hawks. He scored 34 points on 14-of-23 shooting, including 2-of-4 from 3-point land, grabbed 15 boards and blocked five shots in the win that brought the Mavs’ record to 38-39. You started to wonder just how far up the Play-In ladder Dallas could climb in the last few games of the season, before the Mavericks stumbled to a 1-4 record in the final five games of the regular season to end up with the 10th seed in the West.
Davis drove for a game-winning leaner over Onyeka Okongwu with 3.4 seconds left on the clock to put an exclamation mark on his best game in a Mavericks uniform. He created a turnover on the defensive end just 17 seconds earlier.
Davis scored 40 or more three different times while still with the Lakers this season. His season-high scoring mark of 42 points came on Jan. 27 at the Charlotte Hornets. He pulled down a season-high 23 rebounds in that 112-107 win as well.
Contract status
Davis has three years remaining on a contract extension originally signed while with the Lakers. He will make just over $54.1 million for the 2025-26 season, and that will go up to $58.4 million the following year and nearly $62.8 million in 2027-28, his age-34 season.
Looking ahead
Let’s not look ahead, and say we did — how does that sound? That’s how bleak the Anthony Davis Era appears as we glimpse over the horizon. Davis is done developing at this point in his career. His season averages from the 2024-25 season represent a slight decline from the previous year, the healthiest of his career.
Is that indicative of the inevitable decline due to age, or is that due to injuries? It may not matter, because Davis has been injured enough throughout his career to earn nicknames like Anthony Day-to-Davis and Anthony “Street Clothes” Davis.
Since the Mavericks are still right up against the NBA’s first salary cap apron at the moment, it appears there won’t be many substantive adds coming Dallas’ way this offseason. He’ll need to both turn back the hands of time and stay away from injury next year if he’s going to lead the Mavs back to relevance.
And even in the unlikely event that he does, will there be any joy to be found in it?
Grade: Incomplete
It would be unfair to give Davis a firm overall season grade based on nine regular-season games and two Play-In games with the Mavericks, but he’ll need to find his way back to at least the kind of production he had in 2023-24 and the first half of 2024-25. Nothing short of 25 and 12 per game is even acceptable for Davis in light of what the Mavericks gave up for him. And even 26 and 13 won’t account for the Luka Dončić-sized hole Harrison created in this roster by bringing Davis here.