An Insane Trade- Some Thoughts

2/2/25

Sorry in advance, this is a fully basketball related post. If that doesn’t interest you, feel free to skip. To give you the whole TLDR- Luka Doncic, one of the best basketball players on the planet, a truly transcendent player who’s an offensive magician, was traded to the Lakers- in exchange for the older Anthony Davis (a great player, but a tier below Luka), young Max Christie, and one first round pick. ONE. To give you a little perspective, Mikal Bridges was traded for 5 first round picks a few months ago. Mikal Bridges is not on the same tier as Luka- not even close. The Dallas Mavericks traded their entire team, their entire being- for a shot to contend with Kyrie Irving (still a great player), Anthony Davis, and Klay Thompson. The ineptitude of the Mavericks is the first thing that I thought when I read about the trade- Luka Doncic is a once in a generation kind of player. He is the kind of guy that basketball execs will risk their careers on, the kind of player that you build teams around. The Mavericks had proven success- they made it to the finals last year with Luka, Kyrie, PJ Washington, Daniel Gafford, and Derek Lively. Luka has had a down year for sure, but for them to so quickly throw him to the side is basically team suicide. To call this a “win-now” move for them is so stupid its actually mind-boggling. Anthony Davis is not better than Luka Doncic right now. He will never be better than Luka Doncic- he’s getting older, Luka is about 7 years younger than him. What the Mavericks are left with is an older roster, with too many centers. There’s no way a rotation with Daniel Gafford, Anthony Davis, and Derek Lively can win in today’s NBA- in my opinion they should’ve bolstered their wings, not their center position which was already quite strong. The Lakers just got a gift from fucking god- Luka will be their franchise player for the next ten years if they manage to keep him. This changes their trajectory not just this year, but he’ll lead them for years to come even after Lebron retires. The fact they got him for this price is insane- Lakers fans always win I guess. My least favorite part about this entire situation is the fact that the Mavericks could probably have gotten a better package from just about any other team. Even my Spurs would have made a better package. They could’ve probably had Giannis for Luka. They could have gotten both De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis. They could’ve had basically any player they want- besides Jokic, Wemby, Shae, and Tatum. They could’ve gotten picks- so many fucking picks. If I was a Mavericks fan I’d probably stop watching basketball. On the contrary if I was a Lakers fan I’d probably start getting really locked in for the rest of the season. Either way the rest of this season is about to be insane.