In one of the most shocking and quake-producing trades in NBA history, the Los Angeles Lakers have traded perennial superstar Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks.
ESPN’s Shams Charania ambushed the sportsworld on Saturday night, tweeting, without warning, that the Dallas Mavericks were trading Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis and a first-round pick.
The full scope of the earth-shuddering, three-team trade, according to Charania, will send Doncic, Maxi Kleber, and Markieff Morris to Los Angeles; Davis, Max Christie, and a 2029 first-round pick to Dallas; and Jalen Hood-Schifino and two second-rounders to Utah.
What is most shocking to Maverick fans, who may be having conniptions right now, is that they lost the most accomplished young player in NBA history. Despite being in the NBA for nearly a decade, Doncic is only 25 years old, yet he already had five All-NBA first teams by age 24, the most ever at that age — one more than Doncic’s new teammate LeBron James and a handful of all-time greats.
To boot, Doncic just carried his team on his broad shoulder into the NBA Finals last season. And now he is gone.
Moreover, only the arguable GOAT Michael Jordan has a higher career postseason scoring average than Doncic’s 30.9 points per game.
The rationale behind secretly trading a generational player who seemingly had unlimited potential may lie with the mindset of the Mavericks’ front office.
“I believe that defense wins championships,” Dallas GM Nico Harrison told reporter MacMahon. Doncic is notoriously, and even laughably, incompetent defensively. “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 win now and in the future.”
There is also the sentiment among sports pundits who hypothesized that the Mavericks were always concerned about Doncic’s lack of attentiveness to his conditioning and subsequent susceptibility to injuries. Doncic has played 70 games only once which was his rookie year.
Also, analysts believe the Mavs wanted to ship Doncic off before having to give Doncic for the supermax contract of $350 million in the offseason.
