NBA Hater Report: The Mavericks should've folded their Anthony Davis hand a long time ago

Welcome back to the NBA Hater Report: A breakdown of some of the players, teams and trends around the league that are drawing the ire of yours truly. If you're not a fellow pessimist, proceed with caution. 

The Dallas Mavericks never should've traded for Anthony Davis in the first place. We can all agree on this. It's OK. Some things don't need to be argued about. What Nico Harrison did was disgustingly, insultingly, egotistically idiotic and the new Dallas ownership led by Patrick Dumont waited far too long to fire him. 

Just as they waited too long to re-trade Davis.

And now it has burned them as Davis, in what can only be described as the most predictable outcome possible, is hurt again. This time it's ligament damage in his left hand that could, according to ESPN, require surgery and cost him "a number of months." 

Whatever trade value Davis might've had a couple days ago is now officially in the toilet. The Mavericks probably weren't ever going to get a major haul for Davis because Harrison isn't anyone else's GM and everyone else understands that he's about to turn 33, is making $112 million over the next two years with a $62.7 million player option in 2027, wants a big contract extension on top of that, and couldn't stay healthy if his life depended on it, but surely their market would've been better when they could at least sell the illusion of a healthy Davis and what he could mean to a contender. 

How Anthony Davis' injury impacts his trade market and his future with Mavericks

Sam Quinn

The Mavericks should've been trying to get rid of Davis the second it was legal to do so. After he got hurt in his first game with the team (you honestly can't make that up) and had to miss the next month, they let him return at the end of last season and damn near get them into the playoffs with a 40-piece in the play-in loss to Memphis. 

That loss allowed the Mavericks to stumble drunkenly into Cooper Flagg, which should've marked a clear pivot in the direction of the franchise, but instead Nico had to justify his original sin of trading for Davis by claiming the Flagg selection as part of his "vision" and selling the idea of a "defense wins championships" post-Luka roster. 

Except Kyrie Irving had a torn ACL and Davis was guaranteed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to come up with some new ailment. A calf strain. A groin spasm. An adductor something. Who can keep track at this point?

The Mavericks are never going to get Luka back. He's a sunk cost. But they spent so much time trying to convince themselves that Davis could magically turn durable and Irving could come back in elite form and this story could still end with a championship.

For Dallas, the Luka trade is the screw-up they're never going to live down. There's an honest Curse of the Bambino feel to all this. But for Davis, it's more difficult to criticize him. He didn't do anything to sabotage himself. He's just impossibly, almost unbelievably fragile. And at this point, there's no way to keep that fact out of the top paragraph of his NBA legacy. 

Davis was a pterodactyl in New Orleans. A true "best player in the world" type talent who led the league in blocked shots three times, finished as high as third in MVP voting and averaged 30.5 points, 12.7 rebounds and 2.5 blocks over 13 playoff games. 

But he only won five of those playoff games. One series. It all felt a little Mike Trout-ish. 

He's an all-time player performing off Broadway, and ultimately what people remember from that time was the way he forced his way out. The Lakers coup. The "That's all Folks!" shirt. It was the first asterisk on his career. Yeah he was great, but the way that it ended... 

And it's the but that endures. Same thing with the 2020 championship. Yeah he was great, but it was in the bubble. Then, through no fault of his own, he was the other half of one of the worst trades in sports history. Sure Davis is still a great player, but for Luka? Is this a joke? Suddenly a future Hall of Famer became part of the punchline. 

And it just keeps getting worse with all these injuries that are clouding the way think about his career. The "Street Clothes" nickname that serves as a stain on his Basketball-Reference page. It's unfortunate, but it's true: Anthony Davis is going to be remembered as much, if not more, for his inability to remain on the court than for anything he did, well, on the court. 

And the Mavericks should've known that. Nico can take the blame for trading Dončić for Davis in the first place, but once he was gone Davis should've followed him right out the door. The idea of him leading a championship-contending team was a pipe dream. There was no way he was ever going to stay healthy, and no way his trade value was ever going to do anything but decrease. 

It's like Mike McDermott says at the start of Rounders: "If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker." The Mavericks thought they could bluff their way through this hand they should've folded immediately. They thought they were fooling everyone. But all the while, they were the sucker.