Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, Mavs fans, but Anthony Davis left the Dallas Mavericks’ Christmas Day game on Thursday against the Golden State Warriors with a right groin injury.
He came up lame on a transition runout with 8:50 left in the second and, and it was announced at halftime that he would not return. ESPN’s Malika Andrews said on the game broadcast that Davis’ exit from the game came out of “an abundance of caution” in hopes that Davis would be able to play in the final two games
of the Mavs’ West Coast road swing. Dallas plays at the Sacramento Kings on Saturday and at the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday.
The team is calling it “right groin spasms.”
Davis suffered an adductor strain in his first game as a Maverick in February, after a brilliant two-and-a-half quarters against the Houston Rockets. He played in just nine regular-season games for the Mavericks after that last season. That adductor strain was reportedly linked to a previous abdominal injury he suffered in his last season playing for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Davis’ 2025-26 season has also been marred by injury concerns. A calf contusion put him in street clothes for a 14-game stretch earlier this year, and he’s been in and out of the lineup as he’s been working his way back from that injury.
His solid, and sometimes brilliant, play since his return has been one of the reasons the Mavericks have turned their 5-15 start around into seven wins in their last 11 games. He scored 32 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in a 131-121 win over the Denver Nuggets on Dec. 1. he followed that with 29 and eight in a 122-109 win over the Houston Rockets on Dec. 6 and 24 and 14 in a 119-111 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Dec. 12. He had 35 and 17 in Monday’s 119-113 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans and 31 and nine in Tuesday’s 131-130 win over the Nuggets.
His lackluster start to and abrupt exit from Thursday’s game left Dallas adrift in the middle of the floor against the Warriors. But it could also spell a further reduction of his potential value as February’s trade deadline approaches.
For now, it may be wise not to dwell on such things. The real hit could come if Davis is unable to play in one or both of the Mavs’ next two games. If this groin injury takes longer than that to recover from, he won’t command much at all on the trade market.
The injury led ESPN’s Charles Barkley, who was high on the Mavericks this preseason, to say: “Anthony Davis is never going to be healthy. … This is Cooper Flagg’s team. I would move on … the experiment is over.”
