Fans laud the debut of Anthony Davis as a Dallas Maverick
DALLAS – Anthony "AD" Davis gave fans a formidable introduction as a Dallas Maverick before an injury took him out of the game.
Saturday's match against the Houston Rockets was no ordinary matchup. It marked a change of guard: Davis is in, and Luka Doncic is out.
Acting and podcasting haven't stopped Jordan King's watchful sports eye.
"Initially, I was anticipating some kind of trade because we went to the finals last year, and we were playing too slow in the finals," King said. "We were not playing five-on-five defensively in the finals."
King said it took a while for him to become a hard Luka fan. He believes trading Doncic may be blasphemous and shocking to the fan base, but he said they will appreciate the wins in the long run.
"I'm foreseeing that we win two rings back-to-back," King said. "Anthony Davis is in his prime. Kyrie Irving is in his prime. We have the wing players. We have the coaching. We went to the finals last year. I see no reason nobody's standing in our way."
Mike White, a restaurant general manager at Hero by HG, said he watched the ruckus over Doncic's trade evolve into cheers for Davis.
"He (AD) hit a three, and then he turned around and hit a put-back dunk, and then he started claiming that this was his house. The crowd, everything just shifted, the energy shifted. The guys at the bar helped it to go around. People started saying, AD, AD, AD," White said.
Doncic, he admits, will not be a forgettable figure, especially in Dallas.
"Luka was, he represented the kid next door. He's not really super athletically built," White said. "Y'all want to go play pick-up ball. He did, and he comes out and he hit 40 points."
Dadrian Rodgers said he was nearly breathless after watching AD play in the first half.
"Hey, we moving on right now. AD, I love you," Rodgers said. "Thank you."
Rodgers said he is a Mavs fan first and a Dallas native who believes team management got it right.
"It just happened, you know, to come to a time where things have to go a different way," he said. "I'm riding with AD 100%."
In the meantime, King encourages fans to stop being hostile toward AD and embrace him.
"We want them mentally to be in the right headspace, and we want them to know that we support them 100%," King said. "So nothing is more fulfilling than a new player coming to our new city for him and feeling the love."
