Dallas Mavericks forward Anthony Davis suited up for the first time in a month on Friday, returning to the court for the first time since suffering a calf strain on Oct. 29.<\/p>\n
But it was fitting that Davis’ return came against his former team, with the forward suiting up for the NBA Cup matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers. Pre-game, Davis received a warm welcome from the Lakers crowd as he was announced as part of Dallas’ lineup.<\/p>\n
It was the first time that Davis had returned to the Lakers’ stadium since the blockbuster trade<\/a> that sent Luka Don\u010di\u0107 to L.A. and placed Davis in Dallas.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Part of the delay in Davis’ homecoming has been due to various injuries. Despite joining the team last February, Davis has played in only 14 games for the Mavericks. Last season, he appeared in just nine games after suffering an adductor strain in his Mavericks debut<\/a>, which sidelined him for 18 games.<\/p>\n This season, the 32-year-old has played in only five games, with the Mavericks taking a cautious approach<\/a>. When healthy, the 10-time All-Star has performed at a high level, averaging 20.8 points and 10.2 rebounds per game this season.<\/p>\n After missing the playoffs last season and starting this season 3\u20138<\/a>, the Mavericks fired former president of basketball operations and general manager Nico Harrison. Harrison had brokered the blockbuster trade that sent Luka Don\u010di\u0107 to the Lakers and Davis to the Mavericks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Davis was surprised when the Mavericks decided to let Harrison go<\/a>. In Harrison\u2019s place, the Mavericks have adopted a GM-by-committee approach<\/a>. One of the lead decision-makers has been former Mavericks majority owner Mark Cuban<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cuban, who bought the Mavericks in 2000, sold a majority share of the team to the Adelson family for about $3.5 billion in 2023<\/a>. He now serves as an adviser to Patrick Dumont, the Sands Corporation president and COO and Miriam Adelson\u2019s son-in-law.<\/p>\n Cuban recently said the team has no desire to trade Davis <\/a>despite the slow start, Davis\u2019 limited availability, and the arrival of Cooper Flagg<\/a>. Davis also did not express much concern about the trade rumors. Despite Cuban\u2019s involvement, Dumont makes the final decisions for the franchise.<\/p>\n On the other side of Friday\u2019s matchup, Davis will face Don\u010di\u0107, a player he has often been compared against since the trade. Don\u010di\u0107 helped lead the Lakers to a No. 3 seed before their first-round exit last postseason.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n This season, Don\u010di\u0107 is the team\u2019s leading scorer with 35.2 points per game and is averaging 9.2 assists and 8.8 rebounds. The Lakers are 13-4 and second in the West.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Mavericks forward Anthony Davis suited up for the first time in a month on Friday, returning to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[42739,43286,42740,7015,48,52,51,47,50,2497,49,7551,36603],"class_list":{"0":"post-74079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-anthony-davis","9":"tag-blockbuster-trade","10":"tag-cooper-flagg","11":"tag-dallas-mavericks","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-la-headlines","14":"tag-la-news","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","17":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","18":"tag-los-angeles-news","19":"tag-luka-doncic","20":"tag-the-mavericks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}