Overnight, we saw one of the, if not THE, biggest trade in NBA history go down when the Dallas Mavericks sent Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis.
Yes, this is real. Sources tell ESPN: Full trade:
– Lakers: Luka Doncic, Maxi Kleber, Markieff Morris
– Mavericks: Anthony Davis, Max Christie, 2029 LAL 1st
– Jazz: Jalen Hood-Schifino, 2025 Clippers 2nd, 2025 Mavericks 2nd https://t.co/bltojdTaQj
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 2, 2025
I unfortunately wasn’t awake when everything went down, but did spend an hour scrolling through Twitter and reading the entire newsbreak experience this morning. This trade was so crazy that it had people thinking that ESPN’s Shams Charania had his account hacked.
In the moment, I’m sure that it felt more plausible that a hacker had had their way with Shams’ account rather than this video-game trade being legit. Alas, we’re here and there is a blockbuster deal to dissect.
Now, you might be saying to yourself, “Sam, you big dumb idiot, this is CelticsBlog. Why are we dissecting a Lakers-Mavs trade?”
Well, it’s because from a Celtics perspective, this is absolutely hilarious.
First and foremost, the Luka Doncic edition of the Dallas Mavericks will forever be buried in the Boston Celtics cemetery after last season’s NBA Finals.
Boston made an example out of Dallas back in June. They did so largely by taking advantage of Doncic’s defensive shortcomings and consistently targeting him on that side of the ball.
They did it so aggressively in Game 3 of the Finals that Luka wound up fouling out midway through the fourth quarter.
Luka must’ve assumed they’d never actually foul him out, no other reason he’d get caught in this foolish position pic.twitter.com/IEqntGhPNR
— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) June 13, 2024
The best part of him fouling out that night was that there was legitimate discourse about whether or not Doncic being on the bench for the final five minutes would actually be a good thing for the Mavs. Boston still wound up winning the game, but it was a sweat down the stretch.
This was more than just the Cs exploiting a weak point. It was more like they put together a 20-slide PowerPoint presentation for Dallas general manager Nico Harrison, explaining why a player who is so defensively inept cannot lead a championship team.
That presentation must’ve been embedded deep into Harrison’s brain for the last eight months, it seems. Harrison fired a few shots at the Slovenian’s defense as he shipped him out the door.
“I believe that defense wins championships,” Mavs GM Nico Harrison told ESPN regarding his motivation to trade Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis. “I believe that getting an All-Defensive center and an All-NBA player with a defensive mindset gives us a better chance. We’re built to… https://t.co/iPfQvA4str
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) February 2, 2025
Meanwhile, the Lakers just, in fact, traded away their All-Defensive big man for a generational offensive talent who doesn’t defend. Not to mention that ESPN’s Tim MacMahon cited Doncic’s excessive weight, which he says hit 270 pounds, as reasoning why the Mavs didn’t feel comfortable offering him a supermax contract down the line.
Now L.A. is going to roll out a lineup of Doncic, a 40-year-old LeBron James, and the boys. It’ll be a defensive monstrosity at Crypto.com Arena.
I can’t wait.
I’m just sitting here thinking about that first time that LeBron shoots of a passive aggressive tweet about Doncic’s fitness or inevitably throws him under the bus during a postgame scrum. It’s going to feed families, as they say.
Don’t get me wrong. The Lakers absolutely fleeced Dallas here. They got a generational player who is 25 years old while only giving up a 31-year-old Anthony Davis and a first-round pick (plus some filler guys).
There truly is no better franchise at just having superstar players fall directly into their lap. It’s how the Lakers have remained relevant through so many different eras.
Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, Pau Gasol, LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and now Luka Doncic have all basically showed up to the Forum or Staples Center ready to receive their purple and gold uniforms. They’ve made a history out of “stealing other team’s players,” as the great Bill Burr would say.
They plied Davis away from the New Orleans Pelicans almost six years ago (wow), trading a package of young players and picks to the Big Easy for the superstar big man.
What a time 2019 was. The Davis sweepstakes hijacked much of the 2018-19 season with the Lakers and Celtics being the two potential landing spots for The Brow.
There was buzz that the superstars on both teams, LeBron in L.A. and Kyrie Irving in Boston, wanted to team up with the former No. 1 overall pick.
During Davis’ final months in New Orleans, his father weighed in on where he’d like to see his son play next. Anthony Davis Sr. took the opportunity to explain how he would never want his son to play for the big bad Celtics because of the way that they traded away Isaiah Thomas after he’d left it all out on the parquet (no debating that this wasn’t the most morally sound move).
Davis Sr. wanted to see his son play for a nice loyal franchise like the Lakers.
I wonder what he thinks of the Mavericks and their loyalty.
At least AD will get to play with his good buddy Kyrie in Dallas. Interestingly enough, Danny Ainge helped unite the two all of the years after Irving’s time in Boston. Ainge helped to facilitate the Lakers-Mavs trade by taking back Jalen Hood-Schifino and two second-round picks.
Luka was already extremely unlikable with all of his whining and complaining during games. Now that he’ll be playing for the Lakers, it’ll be beyond fun to root against all 270 pounds of him.
