Seven minutes into the Mavericks’ regular season game against the Pacers, Anthony Davis returned to the locker room after walking off the court while grabbing his left leg. He stayed on the sidelines trying to massage his left leg near the Achilles tendon in a concerning sight for Mavericks fans.
Anthony Davis grabbing his achilles area
PLEASE BE OK 🙏 pic.twitter.com/TmF73GdZJu
— Lakers Lead (@LakersLead) October 30, 2025
Especially since, with Kyrie Irving likely out for the season, Davis was carrying a majority of the fans’ hopes on his shoulders to lead the Mavericks in Cooper Flagg’s rookie season. In the first four games of the season, Davis has averaged 25.0 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 2.8 assists while shooting 52.1% from the field for the Mavericks.
However, the Mavericks’ PR team confirmed that Davis will not return in this game due to “left lower leg soreness,” which spells trouble in Dallas.
One of the primary concerns that were brought up when the Mavericks traded Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis was the former Kentucky big man’s fitness and injury proneness. And clearly, those concerns have been a major part of Davis’s time in Dallas so far.
Davis missed 18 games after joining the Mavericks last season in February and is already giving injury scares to the franchise and their fans once again. NBA fans feel like they have seen this before from Davis, and took to social media to express their views on the superstar center seeming fragile and injury-prone to them.
“FBI needs to investigate Anthony Davis, bro is pretending to be a hooper.”
“Why did the Mavs think playing Anthony Davis in the third game in four days was a good idea while he has bilateral Achilles tendinopathy?”
“Go sit down, street clothes.”
“Mavs gotta fool someone into trading for Anthony Davis. I don’t even care about the return. Just move on.”
“Let’s act surprised.”
“Just like old times.”
Several such reactions flooded the internet as the Mavericks’ big man got sidelined just five games into the season. Fans are anticipating that he might miss more games as a result of this.
Considering that the Mavericks had already listed Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II as injured, it meant more minutes in the game for Dwight Powell. But if Lively and Gafford are also out for a few games, then the Mavericks have a major problem to figure out on their hands: who plays the power forward and center positions?
Cooper Flagg could play at the power forward position alongside Dwight Powell, but the severely depleted depth on big men due to injuries could end up being costly for the Mavericks at the center position.
Several analysts and experts considered the Mavericks to be conditional title contenders, depending mainly on Anthony Davis. If Davis gets sidelined for a long duration, those hopes will definitely be stretched thin before eventually snapping.
