The most stunning mid-season trade in NBA history is fascinating for a million reasons, and there are certainly more details to come. No reason is juicer than adding the league’s biggest international superstar to the league’s premier franchise to play next to the possible GOAT.
On Saturday night, the Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis and a first-round pick. Other things were included, too. Here’s the full deal, in case you missed it.
Why would the Mavericks trade Doncic, and why now? ESPN reported that there were concerns in Dallas over Doncic’s conditioning. But Doncic has never been described as svelt, and he led the Mavericks to a Western Conference finals and NBA Finals appearance in two of the last three seasons. Doncic was also up for a supermax extension this summer. Clearly, the Mavs were wary of committing to Doncic long-term.
So they shopped Doncic in the shadows.
"I believe that defense wins championships," Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison told ESPN. “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.”
It’s hard to believe that this is the best deal the Mavericks could get for a 25-year-old, perennial MVP candidate who is presumably in his prime. It’s harder to believe that the Mavericks specifically wanted Davis, a 31-year-old center with a history of durability issues.
Davis may have simply been the best player the Mavericks could get while keeping trade talks as quiet as possible, and Harrison is reverse-engineering the logic in his statement. According to The Athletic’s Sam Amick, the Mavericks did call at least one other team about swapping Doncic for another star, but that offer was turned down.
(It’s a fun thought exercise to speculate about who that player was and the opposing front office’s reaction. Presumably, that player was better than Davis – and more valuable than Doncic – if that front office declined. Victor Wembanyama? Shai Gilgeous-Alexander? Giannis Antetokounmpo? You’d understand why any of those front offices would have kept their guy in a hypothetical star-swap offer.)
But the Lakers said yes. Fit concerns and surprise aside, this is a slam dunk. Lakers top brass had not-so-secretly been worried about the future of the franchise for years – at times to the frustration of the team’s stars. Now they have their answer. Doncic is 15 years younger than LeBron James. He will surely sign a max contract extension this summer that will keep him in LA through at least 2028.
When he’s right, Doncic is no worse than the third-most impactful offensive force in the NBA. A genius passer with superhuman shot-making skills, Luka has been compared to LeBron for years. Now they’ll team up on the Lakers.
There are fit concerns. LeBron and Luka occupy much of the same space and job responsibilities. Both need the ball in their hands to be at their best and aren’t especially helpful when they don’t. If one is going to step aside and adjust his game, it makes sense that it would be LeBron.
Transforming into an off-ball cutter who can stand to give more consistent effort defensively might be what LeBron needs to extend his career. Lakers coach JJ Redick toyed with an offense that ran through Davis to begin the season, only to turn the reins back to LeBron. In Doncic, the Lakers have a true successor.
Without Davis, the Lakers have a gaping hole at center. Where Austin Reaves fits in is a fair question. By making this trade when it did, the Lakers front office still has time to tweak the roster before the Feb. 6 trade deadline.
The potential impact on LeBron’s legacy is – again – fascinating. LeBron has been “stuck” at four rings since 2020. The Lakers' moves – including the LeBron-pushed deal to acquire Russell Westbrook in 2021 – had gotten them stuck in the muddy middle. This blockbuster shakes them free, even if they may not be as playoff-ready this season.
At his best, Luka is capable of leading a team to the Finals. The same can not be said of Davis. For LeBron to win a Michael-Jordan-tying sixth ring, he may have to do so as a complementary piece.
With the right moves over the next six months, the Lakers can climb back into the inner circle of contenders. Suddenly, adding another ring to LeBron’s collection becomes much more feasible. That’s not to say it will be easy, or even likely, but at least now it’s a possibility.
In Luka, the Lakers have their bridge to the future, but LeBron also has his bridge to another career-defining chapter.
Tom Brady joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and won a Super Bowl in 2021. Brady didn’t need that last championship (and was carried by an elite defense and elite talent around him), but it cemented his status as the GOAT and eliminated his critics’ biggest question (that Bill Belichick was perhaps more responsible for the New England Patriots’ success).
Jordan’s defenders point to the ring count. Six is more than four. Narrowing the gap wouldn’t make LeBron the undisputed GOAT, but it would weaken an important part of the argument against him.
Can Luka be LeBron’s Bucs? Is it even fair to consider it now, based on how much more is left to be done with the roster?
Maybe. Maybe not. It’s one of the reasons why this deal is so fascinating. What we do know is that the ramifications of this deal will echo far and wide, and in ways we don’t yet understand.