NBA Rumors: Anthony Davis Might Not Play Again This Season

It looked as though things couldn’t get much worse for Dallas Mavericks fans during the 2024-25 NBA season. But after Kyrie Irving’s season-ending injury on Monday night, the team has officially hit rock bottom.

Things started crumbling in late January. Starting center Dereck Lively was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his ankle, leaving the team somewhat thin at the position. A week later, they filled the hole at the position by executing what could go down as the worst trade in NBA history, giving up Luka Doncic in exchange for Anthony Davis.

Anthony Davis Could Be Shut Down For The Rest Of The NBA Season

The former Lakers star had a wildly impressive start in his first game in Dallas, which came a week after the trade. He put up a gaudy 26 points, 16 rebounds, and 7 assists in 31 minutes in his debut, until disaster struck in the third quarter. The often-injured Davis fell to the ground with a non-contact injury, and it was announced that he would miss at least a month.

The Mavericks were simply hoping that they could stay alive in the Western Conference over the final two months of the regular season. But after climbing as high as 7th place in late February, Dallas is now on the verge of missing out on the Play-In tournament all together. Not only are Lively and Davis still out, but Daniel Gafford has been missing games since February 13th.

Just brutal: Shams Charania is reporting that Anthony Davis and his representatives could discuss shutting him down for the rest of the season after Kyrie tore his ACL. pic.twitter.com/D7YbVFLyMj

— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) March 4, 2025

And then on Monday, Kyrie Irving, the team’s final ray of hope for the 2024-25 campaign, suffered a torn ACL that will likely sideline him into next year’s training camp.

Dallas is 3.5 games up on the Phoenix Suns for the 10th and final Play-In spot, but they may be throwing in the towel regardless. NBA insider Shams Charania reported on Tuesday that the team is considering shutting Anthony Davis down completely, and allowing him the entire summer to heal and come back stronger next season.

It would certainly be a tough blow to the entire organization, as one of their reasons for executing the Doncic trade was to be able to win now, preferably this season, with an elevated defense.

Seeing that Phoenix has the toughest remaining schedule in the NBA, it may prove difficult for the Suns to make up the 3.5 game difference between the two teams. But if the team is without Irving, Davis, Lively, and Gafford (and of course Doncic) down the stretch, there will be little hope that they can make any noise over the final 5 weeks of the season.