USATSI

It has barely been a month since the Dallas Mavericks traded former franchise player Luka Dončić, a baffling decision that put immense pressure on the team to win immediately. When they traded Dončić (who turned 26 last week), they made a bet that Anthony Davis (who turns 32 next week) and Kyrie Irving (who turns 33 later this month) would not only form a championship-caliber partnership, but hold up physically as they reach the end of their respective primes.

If the enormous risk in that was not self-evident, it became clear when, in the third quarter of Davis’ Dallas debut, he had to leave the game with a groin injury. The big man downplayed it postgame, but the Mavericks later announced that he’d strained his left adductor. Almost four weeks later, Davis has yet to return to the court and Irving is done for the season, having torn his left ACL in the first quarter of a 122-98 loss against the Sacramento Kings on Monday.

In the short term, maybe the Mavericks can still make the playoffs. They’re 32-30 and 10th in the West, and they’re three games ahead of the 11th-place Phoenix Suns in the loss column. Davis is scheduled to be reevaluated soon, and if he picks up where he left off, perhaps he can dominate defensively and keep the offense afloat, with Spencer Dinwiddie and Jaden Hardy (when he returns from his latest ankle injury) handling the ball and Klay Thompson coming off screens. With Irving off the court this season, though, Dallas has scored a measly 109.2 points per 100 possessions in its non-Dončić, non-garbage-time minutes, per Cleaning The Glass.

It is difficult to muster much optimism about the Mavs’ immediate future, in part because the stars aren’t the only ones dealing with injuries. Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II are still sidelined, Caleb Martin has yet to suit up and P.J. Washington said on Sunday that he “probably” tried to return from an ankle injury too early. Even if they get a bit healthier and Davis ends the season on a tear, this team doesn’t have a particularly high ceiling without Irving.

The worst part, though, is that Dallas’ immediate future didn’t have to be such a big deal. Before the Dončić trade, a season-ending injury to Irving would have been a big blow to its title chances, but, given that the team appeared to be a few months away from signing one of the league’s three best players to a long-term extension as he approached his prime years, only a temporary setback. The Mavericks may still try to frame this news that way, but it’s a much tougher sell now.

At the press conference following the trade, general manager Nico Harrison told reporters that Davis “fits right along with our timeframe to win now and win in the future.” Then he clarified that “the future to me is three, four years from now.” Laughing, he added, “The future 10 years from now, I don’t know, they’ll probably bury me and [coach Jason Kidd] by then. Or we bury ourselves.” Mavs fans largely did not find this funny, but, in the context of Irving’s injury, the quote raises questions: With Irving likely out for a portion of the 2025-26 season, too, what will the next three or four years look like? If Irving declines his $44 million player option next season, will the front office be willing to sign him to a long-term max deal while he’s rehabbing? If he picks it up, will the Mavs sign him to a max (or near-max) extension?

This summer, Harrison will also likely be negotiating with Washington and Gafford, both of whom will be up for extensions. Both are 26 years old and were crucial parts of the Finals run last year. Now that Davis is in Dallas, though, Washington will likely not see as much time at the 4 spot and, assuming that the 21-year-old Lively remains a core part of the team, Gafford’s minutes will be squeezed.

Regardless of how the rest of the season goes and where the Mavs’ draft pick falls, they’ll enter the offseason with only a 25-minute sample of Davis and Irving sharing the court. This, along with the uncertainty about when exactly Irving will be able to return and how effective he’ll be when he does, will make it harder for them to assess where they currently are, which in turn will make it harder for them to figure out how to get where they want to go.

Compared to the position Dallas was in five weeks ago, its medium- to long-term outlook is unimaginably grim. The Davis-Irving era has gotten off to an inauspicious start, and it was never built to last.