Mark Cuban immediately shuts down Mavericks' season-defining trade rumor

Dallas Mavericks minority owner and adviser to Patrick Dumont, Mark Cuban, recently said that Dallas won't trade Anthony Davis, according to a recent report by Joe Vardon of The Athletic. Davis is currently out of the lineup with a left calf strain, and according to Cuban, they want to keep him around moving forward.

"We won't," Cuban said. "We want to try to win."

Cuban shut down these rumors of Davis being moved within days of them originally coming out, but this decision will ultimately come down to Patrick Dumont and the direction that he wants to take moving forward.

Mark Cuban silences Anthony Davis trade talk — for now

If Cuban's statement about trying to win this year aligns with Dumont's mindset, then keeping Davis will be their best way to do that. Regardless of the injuries that have plagued his time in Dallas, he is still one of the top bigs in the NBA when healthy. He and Kyrie Irving could form a deadly duo together once Irving is ready to return from his ACL tear, but will Davis and Irving being healthy for the final stretch of the season be enough to push the Mavericks into the playoffs?

Probably not.

Heading into tonight's game against the New York Knicks, the Mavericks are 4-11 on the season, which puts them at 13th in the Western Conference. Even when Davis was healthy to begin the year, he didn't look great, and it didn't lead to Dallas winning games. The Mavs were 1-3 in the four full games that Davis played in, including a 30-point loss to the San Antonio Spurs and a home defeat to the 1-12 Washington Wizards.

The Mavericks can't expect Davis to lead the Mavericks on a surge back into the playoff race without Irving by his side, and the last thing that they need to do is to put pressure on either player to return prematurely from injury. Davis learned this the hard way last season when he strained his adductor in his first game as a Maverick, and if he were to get hurt this season, Dallas would be doomed.

Another serious injury to Davis would turn this season into even more of a nightmare than it already is, and on top of that, it would be much tougher to trade him.

Teams want to see Davis get healthy before trading for him (if Dallas does indeed shop him), and they'd likely be stuck with him for the remainder of the season. Davis is owed $175 million over the next three seasons, and no team will want to pay him this if he gets hurt again.

While Cuban has the right to his opinion, and he could be telling the truth about the team wanting to win as many games as possible right now by keeping Davis, trading him to build around Cooper Flagg seems to be the best route forward.

Dallas' 2026 first-round pick is their only first-round pick of their own that they own until 2031, and they can't afford to mess this up. The Mavericks need to add the best possible young player to grow alongside Flagg, and the best way to strengthen their odds of doing so would be to tank.

Time will tell if the Davis rumors turn into anything, but Cuban seems to be standing firm on his stance that Davis is going to remain in Dallas for the time being.