Grading The Wildest Trade In NBA History, Somehow

I have no idea what's going on but inject it into my veins

So…

…what the heck just happened?

I’m getting a nice night of sleep on Saturday, feeling good about Sunday’s piece and unconcerned about the trade market considering that there’s been little to no smoke around anyone other than Jimmy Butler and De’Aaron Fox. Sure, Fox might get traded overnight, but I could likely cover that during Wednesday’s roundup, as I normally do with most trades from the past week. (Welp, I’ll have to do that too, given Fox being sent to San Antonio!)

I wake up on Sunday morning, check my phone, and, uh, I’m sorry?

The Mavericks traded Luka Doncic? Anthony Davis is in Dallas? Jalen Hood-Schifino has been banished to the state of Utah?!

Out of both obligation and sheer shock, let’s quickly go through and grade this trade so I can get all of my thoughts out.

Jazz: A (Because It’s Free Picks!)

The Jazz are the throw-in team here for one reason and one reason only: The Lakers are over the first apron, which means that they can only take in an equal or lesser amount of salary than what they give out, or else they would trigger the hard cap. In practice, that means that the Jazz were sent a player as a salary dump plus two 2025 second-rounders for their trouble. And it’s actually quite beneficial for the Jazz no matter what happens here.

First, you have Jalen Hood-Schifino, who has gotten little playing time at the NBA level due to both injury and the Lakers’ roster construction. Hood-Schifino was actually the #17th pick in 2023 but had his third-year option declined, opening the door for the Jazz to either sign him to a new deal after this season or let him go for nothing. He’s barely played this season, so if he can get on the court for the Jazz in meaningless minutes, it could, quite literally, save his young career.

The more important pieces, though, are the two second-rounders that convey this year. Now, you might be saying to yourself, “They’re just second-rounders,” and while you’d be correct, they feel a lot more valuable due to their immediacy and the draft class in which they convey. The 2025 class is obviously known for the likes of Cooper Flagg and Bryce Harper, but it also has some potentially good guys in the second round like Dink Pate (should he fall), Alex Karaban, and JT Toppin, who have all fluctuated between first-round value and second-round prospects.

There’s nothing more to say for the Jazz here. Free picks, a dart board throw of a player, and no obligations after this season. Perfect stuff.

Mavericks: F - - - - - - - - - - - - -

What the heck, Dallas?

What the heck, Nico Harrison?

What the heck, every decision-maker in the organization?

The absolute gall it takes to make a trade like this and pass it off as putting you in a better situation to win is shocking. But, out of courtesy, or something, I’ll talk about the positive aspects first:

• Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis are a better fit than Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic

• Anthony Davis brings a new defensive identity to this team

Outside of that, this is all terrible. Luka Doncic, a soon-to-be-26-year-old future Hall of Famer who has been All-NBA First Team five times, is being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for an injury-prone superstar plus a single first-rounder. Once again, I ask, what the heck?

Consider the following:

• Doncic’s Estimated Plus Minus: +5.5 (99th percentile)

• AD’s Estimated Plus Minus: +4.2 (97th percentile)

• Doncic’s Averages: 28 PPG, 8.3 REB, 7.8 AST

• AD’s Averages: 25.7 PPG, 10.7 REB, 2.5 AST

I could keep going down the list, but I don’t have to convince you. When taking into account age, performance, stats, and everything else, Luka Doncic is a far better investment than Anthony Davis, who is 31. Defensively, sure, Doncic is a block of Swiss cheese. At the same time, he’s the closest offensive threat to James Harden that we’ve had since James Harden won MVP.

This may feel like I’m running around the point in circles here, and maybe I am. Yet, the worst part about this trade isn’t getting the injury-prone Anthony Davis, as he’s very obviously, when healthy, one of the best players in the league. Instead, it’s the fact that the Mavericks managed to only get one first-rounder for their troubles.

For a player in Doncic’s prime, the picks should be ever-flowing. In a world in which Mikal Bridges was traded for five firsts, Rudy Gobert was traded for a similar amount, and the great Kevin Durant was traded for Bridges, Cam Johnson, and 4 first-rounders, getting a singular first for one of the best players in the league feels like malpractice.

This also brings to my continual question surrounding this trade: Why didn’t the Mavericks shop him around to create a bidding war? The OKC Thunder have been waiting for what feels like forever for a superstar like Doncic to come on the market. They have the war chest, the players, everything — what’s preventing OKC from offering at least four first-rounders plus a player like Chet Holmgren or Jalen Williams? What’s preventing a team like the Spurs from offering up their own war chest to pair Doncic with Wembanyama? Would the Orlando Magic have mortgaged every single first-rounder they have to get Doncic? I’m sure they would!

If you’re worried about winning now, however, why not pry more picks from the Lakers in a bidding war with other teams? What are the chances you could pry Kawhi Leonard from the Clippers plus as many other assets as possible? Joel Embiid, too, could be on the table on top of other players who could help you win now. But no, because the Mavericks were reportedly concerned about Doncic’s conditioning, you go and get Anthony Davis plus a 2029 first-rounder that may not even be that valuable because there is a very real chance that Doncic is still with the Lakers at that point in time — because, you know, he’s not even 26 yet.

This may seem like a ranting session, and it is, but I’m also coming at this without a horse in the race. I’m not a major fan of either team (I’m an H-Town boy!), but the business malpractice that has occurred here is shocking, as I’m sure every other writer will tell you in a far more eloquent manner.

P.S., The Mavs also had to give up Maxi Kleber, who I think is quite a solid role player and warrants at least a second-rounder or two if he were healthy. So sad. They do get Max Christie, who, as I’ll tell you in a moment, I quite like. He, I suppose, is the Kleber return. Still a strange deal that has little justification and has caused a quite literal protest in Dallas.

Lakers: A++++

Everything I just said about Dallas? You can flip it on its head and you pretty much get my opinion about the Lakers’ move.

Anthony Davis has been clamoring to play alongside a big man for weeks now, but the Lakers weren’t too keen to give in to his demands. After all, his injury issues make him a tough guy to build a team around, and the Lakers didn’t have that many assets in the first place. They surely didn’t plan on trading him this season — all the reports that have come out seem to corroborate that fact — but having the chance to get a new face of the franchise for the post-LeBron era is a chance too big to pass up.

Like I did with the Mavs (but reverse it!), I’ll talk about the two downsides to the deal before I go too much into the positives:

• Doncic and LeBron are somewhat redundant in playstyle

• Doncic is going to get paid a lot of money and will take up a lot of salary cap space

The former is a concern until LeBron retires, which likely isn’t too long. The latter, too, has a remedy in the fact that Doncic, after being traded, is no longer eligible for a supermax deal, which means that the Lakers would be able to extend him instead of supermaxing him, a far better deal in the short-term.

And it just gets better, seemingly. The Lakers, as I have mentioned time and time again, only had to give up one first-rounder in the deal, and Doncic may very well be around to keep the team afloat by then. Now, the Lakers own their 2026 first-rounder, 2028 first-rounder, 2030 first-rounder, and 2031 first-rounder, which allows them to either cash in when they want to win now or build around Doncic through the draft.

The team did give up Max Christie, who I think has potential, but wasn’t going to get too much playing time on this Lakers roster anyway. The major question now is the defense and where the Lakers will get it. If they want to cash in a little bit more, they could go for some defensive role players like Pels’ wing Javonte Green, but that’s beside the point right now. Winning this year is no longer the goal, nor should it be. Instead, it’s now the Luka Doncic era, helping bring in even more free agents by way of having yet another perennial MVP talent on the roster.

In a way, I’m mad. The Lakers seem to get lucky at times, going from Kobe and Shaq to LeBron and AD to now LeBron and Doncic. However, I understand that the team went through a rough patch between those first two eras, and if you’re offered Doncic for cheap, you take it.

After years of what looked like GM Rob Pelinka being too tentative on the trade market, he finally made a splash that could cement his legacy as a GM. As for LeBron, now it’s a matter of maybe going after another title and riding off into the sunset with the Lakers in good hands…unless they trade LeBron, which isn’t entirely out of the question…

…but we’ll let that happen on its own. The NBA is crazy, y’all, and this is arguably its craziest moment yet.

The Trade Market: D

Ah, you thought I was done, didn’t you?

Not quite — but I’m almost done, so hang with me here.

One thing I have to mention is the backdrop to this entire deal: The theoretical first-rounder stock market. In recent years, we’ve seen players like Rudy Gobert go for ridiculous amounts of picks and one of the greatest players, Doncic, go for very little, as you’ve already seen. There are still stars to be had, though, with De’Aaron Fox and Jimmy Butler both being on the market.

With Doncic going for a singular first, don’t be surprised if the Heat and Kings have to settle for fewer picks than they originally intended. While I do believe other GMs will recognize the Mavs’ stupidity as an outlier, I also suspect it drags down the market for first-rounders in the short term.