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The Dallas Mavericks' season has fallen apart in just over a month, and now, one NBA insider is suggesting the team trade Anthony Davis, the biggest piece in the Luka Doncic trade, without ever playing another game for the Mavs.
When Nico Harrison pulled the proverbial trigger on the highly ridiculed trade that sent Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Davis, it equally puzzled fans and media members. However, some 30 days later, the trade has gone from bad to worse.
Davis has played just one game for Dallas. After missing his final five games as a Laker, Davis dazzled in his Mavericks debut on Feb. 8 before having to leave the game due to an abdominal injury that has sidelined him since. Numerous other Mavs have also gone down with injury, but none have been as devastating as Kyrie Irving tearing his ACL on March 3.
With Irving out for the rest of the season and likely a large chunk of next season, ESPN NBA insider Tim Bontemps believes the Mavericks should move on from Davis.
“I’m going to be honest. I don’t think that Anthony Davis should ever play for the Mavericks again. He shouldn’t play for the rest of the season, and they should trade him this summer,” Bontemps said on the Hoop Collective podcast.
Bontemps explained his reasoning, arguing that Harrison already said the Mavericks were in a championship window, and that window may now be firmly shut. If it is, then the Mavs, Bontemps says, should try to trade him for a “giant bag of stuff and start over.”
“Nico Harrison talked about them having a three- or four-year window with this group. That included this season,” Bontemps said. “Kyrie Irving is going to be a 33-year-old guard who had a catastrophic knee injury with a player option for next season. You basically have to write him off for being a major contributor for next season. Maybe he could come back and do that.
“You have to assume if you’re running the franchise he’s not going to do that. At that point, Anthony Davis will have one year left on his deal. He’s going to be approaching his 33rd birthday. This team has really no ability to contend as it stands now without a proper star next to Anthony Davis.”
While the suggestion sounds inane on the surface, Bontemps is likely right that Irving's injury dashed the Mavericks' title hopes, if they had any after trading Doncic in the first place.
But it will likely be impossible to convince Harrison, whose reputation was likely forever tarnished by the Doncic trade, to give up so quickly on Davis, who he was dead set on acquiring in the trade for the Slovenian superstar.
The Mavericks are currently 32-30 and in 10th place in the Western Conference, which would make them the final team in the Play-In if the season ended today.
