Anthony Davis' injury exposes dark truth Nico Harrison and the Mavericks ignored

Dallas Mavericks star big man Anthony Davis suffered a low-grade calf strain in a game against the Indiana Pacers on October 29, and he's been out ever since. Davis is currently day-to-day, as revealed by Jason Kidd on Wednesday night, and Nico Harrison should've known that Davis isn't durable enough to be a No. 1 option in today's NBA long before he traded for him.

Among other motives, one of the reasons that Harrison traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Davis was due to Doncic's injuries. He didn't believe that Doncic's body would hold up for the long haul, and he decided to move on from him less than a year after he led them to the NBA Finals for just the third time in franchise history. Doncic was in the process of rehabbing a strained calf that he suffered on Christmas Day when Harrison decided to send him to the Lakers, and he never even got the chance to come back and try to lead Dallas on another deep playoff run.

After the trade, Doncic revealed that his recovery from the calf strain that he suffered on Christmas was one of the first times that he fully rested following an injury, and he didn't rush back to the floor. He took all of the necessary steps that he needed to ensure that he was fully healthy before he returned to the floor on February 10 for the Lakers, and there was even some discourse between the Mavericks and Doncic's camp that he should've returned sooner (before he was traded).

Anthony Davis' durability issues were never a mystery

Ironically, Davis' first full season with the Mavericks has already been derailed by an early-season injury, and truthfully, all of this was predictable. No one expected for Dallas to be this bad, but history is not on Davis' side when it comes to staying on the floor.

Davis was injured when the Mavericks traded for him on February 1, and he ultimately got injured in his first game in Dallas due to the fact that he rushed back to the floor. He then missed the next 18 games with an adductor strain, and while he was out, Kyrie Irving tore his ACL, and the season imploded.

Then, during the offseason, Davis underwent eye surgery to repair a detached retina. This caused him to be forced to rest for multiple weeks during the offseason, and he likely wasn't able to ramp up as hard as he would've liked ahead of the season.

Because of this, Davis then came into camp admittedly overweight, and then he got injured in the first quarter of the Mavericks' fifth game of the season. He was even questionable for this game due to bilateral Achilles tendinopathy, but Dallas decided to play him, and it clearly didn't work out for them. Davis' weight and conditioning struggles this season tie directly back to some of Harrison's former gripes about Doncic, as he didn't believe that he would ever fix his conditioning or diet.

Doncic responded to this by going on a revenge tour over the summer, as he got into the best shape of his life. The trade and everything surrounding it crushed him, and he squashed any doubt that he couldn't get into peak shape by transforming his body.

While Doncic is averaging 40 points per game and the Lakers are the No. 2 team in the Western Conference, Davis is sidelined, unable to help his team due to his calf injury. Dallas most recently lost to the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday night, and they are now tied for the worst record in the West with New Orleans at 2-6.

If Davis were fully healthy, then things would likely be a bit of a different story right now, but he isn't. And his durability issues should've been expected. Especially since he had to spend a large chunk of the offseason off the court due to his eye surgery.

In previous stops, Davis decided not to ramp up his activity until the end of the offseason, sometimes even within a month of training camp beginning, and it cost him, but this time it wasn't his decision. He had to stay off the court for part of the summer, and one thing led to the next.

Harrison started his Mavericks tenure with a plethora of great moves, as he made multiple incredible signings and trades that helped lead Dallas to the 2022 Western Conference Finals and 2024 NBA Finals, but his decision to trade for Davis has aged more poorly than anyone could've imagined.

He should've never expected Davis to be healthy enough to lead a team to an NBA Finals berth as the top option, and combine this with the fact that he can't be an elite offensive engine, and it's clear that the Doncic-Davis swap was never meant to work out in Harrison's favor. It was destined to fail, and so far, it has.

Davis is undoubtedly a top big man in the NBA when he's fully healthy, but that's a rare occurrence. And the Mavericks should've known that before they made the most shocking trade in sports history.