Anthony Davis injury gives Mavericks a major advantage no one saw coming

Anthony Davis is out for at least the next month after suffering ligament damage in his left hand against the Utah Jazz earlier this month, but there is quietly a silver lining here for the Dallas Mavericks. While you never want any of your players to get injured, Davis going down allows the Mavericks to consider all options ahead of the trade deadline and explore tanking without the optics of giving up too early.

The Mavericks are 19-27 on the year, and with the playoffs looking like a long shot, they have to pick a direction. And soon.

After this year, Dallas doesn't fully control their first-round pick until 2031, and tanking may be in their best interest at this point. The Mavs have still won seven of their last 11 games, but Davis' injury definitely pushes them toward tanking rather than competing for a playoff spot.

Anthony Davis' injury accelerates Mavericks' rebuild timeline

Fans have been begging for the team to tank in an effort to find a co-star for Cooper Flagg for months now, and Davis' injury allows them to do this more easily without seeming like quitters or giving up on the season prematurely. Their roster is not healthy enough to chase a favorable playoff spot, and Davis going down gives them an easier avenue to shut down the season without receiving heavy backlash.

The Mavericks don't have the firepower to compete in a seven-game series with some of the best teams in the Western Conference, and with that being said, they need to begin attaining assets to build around Cooper Flagg. Dallas should side with being sellers rather than buyers at the trade deadline, and this would undoubtedly expedite them taking the direction of making this season a rebuild year.

On top of the Mavericks' potential opportunity to tank for the best possible draft odds, they also get a better look at the players that are currently on the trade block. Dallas is already shopping Klay Thompson, Daniel Gafford, and D'Angelo Russell, and Naji Marshall is drawing significant interest as well.

The Mavs have several decisions to make over the next few weeks, and Davis being out should definitely make these choices easier. Dallas should have been leaning toward tanking even before Davis got injured, but rival teams getting a better look at their potential trade candidates should prove to be beneficial over the next 10 days leading up to the trade deadline.

While Russell is out of the rotation altogether, Thompson and Marshall have definitely increased their trade value over the last few weeks. Marshall is playing the best basketball of his career recently, averaging 20.0 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.5 assists, and 1.4 steals per game while shooting 57.6 percent from the field. He has poured in five games of 20+ points, with one game of 30+ points. Teams around the league are taking notice, and he could even fetch a first-round pick if Dallas plays their cards right.

Without Davis getting hurt, many of these players wouldn't have ever gotten this increased offensive workload, and it also pushed them closer toward selling pieces at the trade deadline. The Mavericks are also more likely to shut down Kyrie Irving for the season with Davis missing over a month with this hand injury, and Dallas' direction should be overwhelmingly clear once the February 5 trade deadline passes.

Until then, Mavericks fans can only speculate about what is coming, but Anthony Davis' hand injury definitely pushed them toward a rebuild. Dallas probably won't trade him before the trade deadline, but they could explore shutting him down for the year along with Irving to increase lottery odds.

There are a lot of moving parts in Dallas with this season not going according to plan, but Davis' injury isn't the disaster that some fans once thought it would be.