When the Warriors traded for Jimmy Butler before the 2025 deadline, they did so to try to win another championship with Steph Curry. To keep him around to help them do that, they signed him to a two-year, $121 million extension. Unfortunately, less than a year later, he tore his ACL. While the situation is different from what the Washington Wizards are facing with Anthony Davis, they can still learn from it.
Butler was 35 when the Warriors traded for him, so while he was older than AD, who was 32 at the time of the Wizards' trade (he turned 33 in March), the concerns about extending an older player with a concerning injury history are the same.
Golden State was confident that investing in him would be worth it, as shown not only by the trade but also by extending Butler before he played in a game. It probably helped that, in the two full seasons before 2024-25, he played at least 60 games each season.
The Wizards opted not to take a similar approach with AD, who became extension-eligible on August 6. Understandably, they want to wait until they have a large enough sample size (if they get one) to base potential extension discussions on. But if he stays healthy and the front office likes what they see, AD could follow Trae Young with a new deal of his own.
And that could end up being a mistake.
Wizards have to be overly cautious with Anthony Davis extension
Technically speaking, signing any player to a long-term deal carries risk; it's just a matter of how much.
For Davis, who has played a combined 29 games since the Lakers traded him to the Mavericks for Luka Dončić at the start of 2025 and has hit the 70-game mark in only one season (he's only done so three times in his career) since Los Angeles traded for him in 2020, the risk is considerable.
The Warriors' risk in extending Butler (which you can probably attribute to their desperation) didn't pay off. Or, at least, not yet, since he's under contract for one more season and is expected to return sometime during 2026-27. While it was a freak injury, he did have a history of knee ailments, and injuries naturally become more of a concern as players get older.
Even if Davis gets off to a hot start, Washington has to consider not just what happened with Butler and Golden State, but also that AD's recent history shows he struggles to stay healthy. In his first game in Dallas, he looked like his dominant self, but he left in the third quarter with what was a left adductor strain. It didn't sideline him for the rest of the season, but he missed over a month.
For a player as injury-prone as he is (more so than Butler), the Wizards have to be careful not to throw a wrench into their future by extending him, as the Warriors did. Maybe there is a more team-friendly number that Washington and AD can agree to if all goes well, which might be wishful thinking, but that wouldn't eliminate all risk. It'd just make it more manageable.
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