Pride may keep Mavericks from making the right move with Anthony Davis

The Dallas Mavericks' future looks bright with 18-year-old Cooper Flagg in the fold. It would look a lot brighter if they'd trade their expensive All-Star big man.

Anthony Davis left Wednesday's 107-105 win over the Indiana Pacers with a leg injury after playing just seven minutes and has been ruled out of Saturday's game in Mexico City against the Detroit Pistons. It's another injury-related absence for Davis, who has played in only 14 of 38 games since the Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Doncic for him last season — and he's left two of those games before halftime.

Anthony Davis doesn't fit with Cooper Flagg's timeline

The 32-year-old Davis is in his 14th NBA season, 13 seasons ahead of and nearly 14 years older than Flagg. He's never been particularly durable, playing more than 62 games just once since his age-24 season.

Flagg can certainly use veteran mentors like Davis, Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson, but the Mavericks have a lot of them. There are five players on the Mavericks roster with more than a decade of NBA experience. Flagg is nearly four years younger than the Mavericks' second-youngest rookie, Ryan Nembhard.

Davis seemed to acknowledge the imminent end of his career, telling ESPN's Tim MacMahon, "We want [Flagg] to go out here and just play basketball. He'll have pressure three, four or five years from now when we all probably going to be out [of] the league."

Three years from now is when Davis' contract, worth just over $175M, expires. What makes his fit with the rookie difficult is that the 6-foot-9 Flagg seems like a natural power forward, which is where Davis, always reluctant to play the center position, currently starts.

Trading Anthony Davis would embarrass Dallas GM Nico Harrison 

When the Mavericks improbably won the draft lottery and the right to select Flagg, it represented a golden opportunity for the Mavericks to reset their franchise. With Davis turning 33 this season, it would seem to be the ideal time to trade him to an NBA team that's closer to competing than the Mavericks are. He's expensive and an injury risk, but Davis could be a game-changing defender, especially given all the title contenders with huge, skilled frontcourts, like the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Cleveland Cavaliers and Denver Nuggets.

But the incredible backlash Harrison received for trading Doncic may keep him from making such a move with Davis. Even with Flagg in the fold, chants of "Fire Nico!" regularly erupt from the fans at Mavericks games. It's probably better for the long-term success of the franchise for Harrison to turn Davis into draft picks and players closer to Flagg's age. But to do so would be an implicit acknowledgement that the Doncic deal was a disaster.

Dallas has plenty of other frontcourt depth, including centers Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II, plus recently-extended forward P.J. Washington. Even with Davis on the floor, the Mavericks' lack of ball handling and perimeter shooting makes them an unlikely contender this season.

Every game Davis misses with an injury makes his trade value diminish. It didn't help that he came to training camp overweight and out of shape after offseason eye surgery, ostensibly one of Harrison's issues with Doncic. If Davis already has an Achilles injury in October, can they be confident about his health in April?

The Mavericks should seriously consider trading AD. Their general manager's pride might not let them.