Jason Kidd finally admits what Mavericks fans always knew about Anthony Davis

Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd finally admitted that Anthony Davis is best suited as a center this season, and this is something that fans have been preaching for months. Even last season, fans knew that Davis was better at center rather than power forward, but Davis' preference for playing the four and Dallas' roster construction trumped that.

Heading into the 2025-26 season, Dallas had Davis, Daniel Gafford, and Dereck Lively II ready to go. The roster that Nico Harrison built meant that Davis virtually had to play the four to properly balance their roster and give Lively II and Gafford proper playing time, but this plan was disastrous from the start.

Davis isn't built to be a four at this point in his career, and Kidd seems to be coming around to that. Dallas is 12-20 on the year, and with Lively II out for the year, Davis playing the five is the option that makes the most sense.

The Anthony Davis position debate is finally over

On Tuesday night, before Dallas took on the Denver Nuggets, Kidd was asked about some of his recent comments about getting Davis back to playing some power forward despite his success at center. Fans immediately pushed back, as Davis was playing best at center, but Kidd cleared up his thoughts with a pregame statement when asked about it.

"I just said that we can look at it, not get back to it soon, just giving different options that we have to give Gaff a little bit more time on the floor," Kidd said.

Playing Davis at power forward at some points of the game obviously makes sense, as they need Gafford to play more than just the minutes that Davis is off the floor. This means that Davis and Gafford will at least share some court time together, which we've seen recently, but the end of his statement hit the nail on the head.

"But with the way we’re built right now, AD’s got to play the five," Kidd said. "That gives us the best chance to win."

This is the most that Mavericks fans can ask of Kidd right now. He isn't trying to force a narrative that Davis is too dominant at power forward to ignore, and he understands that it makes the most sense for Davis to spend nearly all of his time at center.

The only time that Davis doesn't need to play center is when he is sharing the court with Gafford, and unfortunately for the Mavericks, their minutes together haven't been the best dating back to last season. Gafford struggles when defending floor-stretching bigs already and Davis' build forces him to play center.

There isn't an easy way out of this, and Kidd seems to understand that Davis' minutes at power forward need to be limited. Kidd said that they at least want to experiment with the Gafford-Davis pairing a little bit more, and it's going to take some time to see if that unit has what it takes to help them win some games.

In just seven minutes together this season, the Mavericks have posted a 133.3 defensive rating, and a -6.1 net rating. The sample size is far too limited to draw any conclusions just yet, but the Davis-Gafford lineups don't have the same potential juice as the Davis-Lively II lineups. Davis was always going to fit better with Lively II rather than Gafford, and with Lively II now out of the picture, Kidd's options are limited.

Unless Gafford and Davis can get more productive in their minutes together, it sounds like Davis will continue to spend nearly all of his time at center.

And this is exactly what Mavericks fans want from him.