Anthony Davis and basketball courts have always had a troubled relationship. The 2025-26 season has only added another painful chapter to that story.
The Washington Wizards announced that Davis will remain sidelined through at least the end of March as he continues recovering from left hand ligament damage, and he still has not made a single appearance for the franchise since being acquired from Dallas in February.
Davis originally suffered the hand injury on January 8 while still a member of the Dallas Mavericks. He opted against surgery after receiving a second medical opinion and targeted a return of roughly six weeks. Those six weeks have long since passed. The timeline has stretched, the re-evaluations have come and gone, and no debut has materialized.
With the Wizards having roughly seven games remaining once the end-of-March evaluation window arrives, Davis’s regular season debut for Washington looks increasingly unlikely, potentially extending into a scenario where he suits up for the first time in a Washington uniform during the offseason or summer league.
The Wizards are in full rebuild mode with no playoff ambitions, which makes the decision to continue protecting Davis’s long-term health a straightforward calculation for the front office. There is nothing to gain from rushing a player back for a handful of meaningless late-season games when the cost of a setback could erase months of recovery.
Davis averaged 20.4 points and 11.1 rebounds over 20 games before the injury, and remains under contract through the 2027-28 season with a player option attached to the final year.
The talent is obvious. The potential impact in Washington is significant. But for a player whose entire career has been defined by the gap between what he is capable of and what his body allows, this latest stretch of inactivity is hauntingly familiar. Davis has missed significant time due to injury in nearly every season of his career, and this year’s hand issue has done nothing to change that narrative. The Wizards will have to wait until next season to truly evaluate what they acquired, and the basketball world will have to wait even longer to see if the version of Davis that showed up in Dallas and in the early part of this season can stay on the floor long enough to matter.
