This Sunday afternoon, NBA insider Shams Charania just tweeted that Anthony Davis of the Los Angeles Lakers will be traded to the Dallas Mavericks for Luka Doncic. This trade broke the internet and sent shockwaves all across the basketball landscape as it could very well turn out to be a “Trade of the Century” for the NBA.
Teams Involved: Lakers, Mavs, and Jazz
Aside from Shams, fellow NBA insider Chris Haynes also reported that this tweet was real and that three teams—the Lakers, Mavs, and Utah Jazz—will be involved in this trade, with the Lakers and Mavs doing it in order to increase their chances of being legitimate title contenders this season. As for the Jazz, they’re probably just a filler to make the trade work financially.
Here’s the full trade:
Lakers Receive: Luka Doncic, Maxi Kleber, and Markieff Morris
Mavericks Receive: Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and 2029 Lakers 1st round pick
Jazz Receive: Jalen Hood-Schifino, 2025 Clippers 2nd Round Pick, and 2025 Dallas 2nd Round Pick
Win Now, Suffer Later(?)
With these trades, one thing is clear: Both the Lakers and Mavs are going all-in to win the title this season. The Jazz, on the other hand, seem to be doing their best to tank and hopefully draft the potential number 1 overall pick for the 2025 NBA Draft, Cooper Flagg from Duke University.
For the Lakers, this trade abruptly ends the LeBron James-AD duo after six years, starting all the way back to the 2019–20 season. The Lake Show with LeBron and Davis won the championship during the Orlando NBA Bubble. After that title run, though, the closest the Lakers got to climbing the mountaintop again was the 2022–23 NBA season, where they got to the Western Conference Finals and was swept by the eventual champions Denver Nuggets.
Now, the Lakers get that next superstar they have been searching for to pair next to LeBron—though the price was losing Davis, himself a superstar and arguably the Purple and Gold’s best player this season. This trade follows an earlier exchange that saw the Lakers get Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton from the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for D’Angelo Russell.
The trade also means Luka is now poised to carry LBJ’s legacy in Los Angeles as The King might be close to retirement. After all, LeBron is now 40 years old. But, for the time being, the two superstars will look to carry the Lakers to lofty heights as arguably the most prolific playmaking duo in the league—assuming Luka returns to his superstar form. What happens next is anybody’s guess.
Davis this season is averaging 25.7 points, 11.9 rebounds, 3.4 assists 2.1 blocks, and 1.3 steals and is shooting 52.8%. He has played 42 of the 47 games for the Lakers this season. Luka, on the other hand, has only played 22 games for Dallas as he has been sidelined due to a calf injury. He averaged 28.1 points, 8.3 boards, 7.8 assists, and 2.0 steals in the games he played on 35.4% shooting from downtown and 46.4% overall.
For Dallas, they’ll be getting a superstar big man who’ll be playing his natural power forward position with Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II at the 5. But while the Mavs upgraded their frontcourt, their backcourt might have taken a big hit as it leaves Kyrie Irving as the sole playmaker in the guad position. Max Christie, who’s averaging 8.3 points, 2.7 rebounds, 1.4 assists, and 0.8 steals, will be counted upon to provide some playmaking relief for Uncle Drew but won’t fill that huge hole Doncic will be leaving in his departure. Maybe Quentin Grimes, PJ Washington, and Spencer Dinwiddie will also be called on to step up their shot creation with Luka gone.
Luka had been with Dallas since the 2018–19 season. He brought the Mavs to the Western Conference Finals in 2022 and led them to the NBA Finals last season, where they lost to the Boston Celtics in five games. The last time that the Mavs won a title was during the 2011–12 NBA season. Now, they just replaced a 25-year-old superstar entering his prime for a 31-year-old big with a history of injury woes.
Winners and Losers in NBA Trade of the Century
Surprisingly, Adam Silver didn’t veto this trade in much the same way former NBA commissioner David Stern vetoed the Chris Paul to the Lakers trade back then.
It’s hard to say who’s the real winner and loser in a trade like this. The Lakers lost what had been a developing chemistry and their most reliable big man—with Jaxson Hayes, Christian Koloko, Trey Jemison III, and the injured Christian Wood left to man the paint. The Mavs, on the other hand, lost a superstar franchise player and now have an abundance of big men on their roster. The Jazz, an afterthought in this crazy deal, might be closer to getting that coveted no. 1 pick in next year’s draft for their role in facilitating this exchange of superstars.
No matter what happens next, this trade just proves one thing unequivocally: Loyalty is just a word in the “National Business Association.”
