Anthony Davis Can Now Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Or Washington. Just Not Here.

Ben Rogers is a North Texas native and longtime radio host, currently co-hosting The Ben and Skin Show weekdays on 97.1 The Eagle. He’s a co-founder of The Haymaker Network, a YouTube video podcast network built around DFW sports, and a co-owner of Rollertown Beerworks in Frisco. Rogers submitted the below opinion piece on the Feb. 4 Anthony Davis trade. 

I cannot tell you how relieved I am that Anthony Davis is no longer on the Dallas Mavericks. 

Although the tornado of drama we’ve all endured over the past year might feel a tad personal when it comes to the architect behind the Luka trade disaster, former GM Nico Harrison, it’s never felt personal with AD. 

This man was set up to fail. He didn’t ask to be traded for a messiah. Additionally, he’s truly exceptional in his craft. Just nowhere near as good as the cape-wearing superhero he was traded for. Again, not his fault. 

At the end of the day, one of the worst parts of all of this is that Davis was just rarely available to play due to the longest list of injuries in the history of list-making. 

But now that he’s been traded to the Washington Wizards in a salary dump that will free up resources for the Mavs to properly build their franchise around their undeniable phenom baby hoop god, Cooper Flagg, Davis’ frequent lack of availability is another team’s massive problem.

No more nightly drama about whether he’s playing or not. 

No more extensive looks at his expansive big and tall wardrobe. 

No more holding my breath every time he hits the floor as if he’s made of only the finest Fabergé eggs. 

And look, it’s not personal. I’m not intending to attack this world-class gladiator’s character. I certainly hope this doesn’t come off as such. I don’t believe he’s faking injuries, but the simple truth is they continue to stack up like a Jenga tower high enough to capture Alex Honnold’s imagination. 

Maybe it all goes back to high school, when the story goes that Davis experienced an unprecedented growth spurt, going from being about 6’2” to being 6’11” in a very short time. That fast-forward style beanstalking probably forced him to completely relearn how to move, run and hoop as a bulky big instead of a speedy, little guard. That’s what makes him such a special talent: little man skills in a big man body. 

But maybe it’s also his kryptonite. 

No matter the reason, the fact is this dude is always injured. 

During his extremely brief Mavs career, he was only available for roughly a third of their games. So about 66% of the time, he was showing his teammates a new outfit while watching the game from a spectacular seat. 

But AD’s chronic lack of availability didn’t begin when he got to Dallas. He’s only eclipsed 56 games played once in the past six seasons. Yet another reason why Harrison’s unexplainable self-sabotage had all of humanity scratching their heads, wondering why the Mavs just traded the face of the league for the most hurt dude ever, who is also six years older.

To that end, Davis will soon turn 33. Despite entering the latter stages of his NBA career and already being owed something like $120 million over the next two seasons, his representatives are reportedly seeking a fat extension to keep the big bucks rolling in well into the back half of his 30s. 

Father Time is most certainly watching all of this like a hungry hawk licking its razor-sharp beak. I strongly doubt more miles on the odometer are going to have a positive impact on AD’s soft-tissue injury parade. 

Just using my own personal experience as a human on Earth, the older I get, the more my body aches in mysterious and unexplainable ways. 

Pillow-related neck trauma can now take me out for an entire week at any time. Hangovers now require 72 hours of recovery time. Reaching for a remote control could easily result in a torn rotator cuff and even something as pedestrian as a big sneeze might land me on Injured Reserve. 

If aging beats up mere mortals like us, who just sit around doom-scrolling, managing fantasy football teams and mindlessly staring into open refrigerators like zombies, imagine what it does to someone who’s spent over a decade getting slammed into by the world’s most muscular 7-foot monsters. 

But honestly, there’s one part of AD’s short time in Dallas that probably bothers me the most. 

After all the heat his dear friend Nico took for betting the house on him, and with EVERYTHING riding on this season, AD showed up for training camp out of shape. What a massive statement that made. 

That’s not bad luck. That’s bad professionalism. Soft-tissue injuries love poor conditioning. With that much on the line, don’t you owe it to the team, and to your drowning pal Nico, to show up in the best shape of your life? 

Then, in his final act as a Mav, as the NBA trade deadline was fast approaching and his name was knee-deep in all the rumors, AD injured his hand on Lauri Markkanen’s soft, silky jersey. Worst timing ever. 

When that happened, I thought there was no way that the Mavs would be able to get anything for him at the trade deadline. I couldn’t be happier to have been wrong about that. 

I genuinely feel for AD. He never should’ve been put in the impossible position of being traded for Luka. That injustice wasn’t his fault, but it was always going to be on his tab with fans in Dallas. 

So you’ve got an always-injured guy making elite money, barely available, clogging your salary cap, getting older, and now asking for an extension into his late 30s, all while serving as a daily reminder of the worst and most painful trade of all time? Yeah, no thanks. Trading Anthony Davis for cap relief is a huge win and a chance for the Mavs and him to start over.  

The Cooper Flagg era is officially here, and the good news is this: he’s the real MF deal. Every bit as good as advertised, and actually even better. Another transcendent franchise savior, somehow falling straight into the laps of the Dallas Mavericks.

From Dirk Nowitzki to Luka Dončić to Cooper Flagg, most franchises are lucky to get one player of this magnitude in their entire history. The Mavs have landed three in the span of three decades.

With the AD trade, Nico Harrison’s reign of terror finally comes to an end. Rest easy, my friends, that man can hurt you no more.