Spoiler https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/st...nthony-davis-trade-grades-winners-losers-next Grades Los Angeles Lakers: A If we put every NBA player into a draft today with their current contracts, Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs would undoubtedly be the No. 1 pick. Most likely, three-time MVP Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets would go second despite being nearly 30. And then we'd have a tough choice between Doncic and MVP frontrunner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder for the third spot. Given that Doncic will turn 26 later this month and has a full season on his contract before a 2026-27 player option, there's a reasonable argument that he is the most valuable player at the time of being traded in modern NBA history. For the Lakers to land Doncic without even exhausting their supply of draft picks is an incredible coup that sets up the next generation of success for one of the league's most storied franchises. In the short term, getting Doncic might not catapult the Lakers into legitimate title contention. After all, Doncic is currently sidelined by a calf strain suffered on Christmas Day, and frankly hadn't been as effective as Davis when healthy. Although the Lakers still have moves they can make before Thursday's trade deadline, dealing their starting center for a 6-foot-6 player in return leaves them woefully thin in the middle. And there will undoubtedly be a learning curve when Doncic does join the lineup, displacing LeBron James and Austin Reaves as the Lakers' primary ballhandler. Given all those issues, it's plausible the Lakers' chances of winning a playoff series this season diminished with the trade. That's unimportant by comparison to bringing Doncic to L.A. for what could be years to come. As ESPN's Bobby Marks noted, Doncic will be eligible for a four-year extension worth nearly $229 million this summer. Alternatively, Doncic could sign a shorter bridge extension of three years and $165 million with a player option for 2028-29 that would allow him to push his salary up to 35% of the cap once he's attained the 10 necessary seasons of experience. A Doncic extension would surely take him beyond James' career, at which point the Lakers will have to find a championship-caliber costar for him. That process will be much easier because of the deal the Lakers negotiated. Contrast this return with the Davis trade, where the Lakers gave up three promising young players (Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart and Brandon Ingram, who all developed into quality starters or better), the No. 4 pick of the draft, two unprotected first-round picks and a swap. Here, the Lakers gave up one young player (Christie, whose outlook is not as bright as either Ball or Ingram at the time of the Davis trade) and one unprotected draft pick, set to convey when Doncic is age 30. Remarkably, that leaves the Lakers with their 2031 first-round pick to offer in a future trade for a star, plus swaps in 2026, 2028 and 2030 as well as 2024 first-round pick Dalton Knecht. By this summer, they'll also be able to swap their 2032 first-round pick. The Lakers will have to be judicious in how they manage those picks, but the cupboard is hardly bare. The Lakers deserve credit for not overreacting to their recent success. Part of what made the timing of the Saturday night (on the West Coast) blockbuster so shocking was the Lakers just finished an impressive win on ABC over the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, bringing them to 8-2 in their last 10 games. At 28-19, the Lakers are only a game out of fourth in the Western Conference. Despite their recent success, the Lakers have still been outscored on the season. Among the four teams ahead of them in the West standings, they've only beaten the Memphis Grizzlies (twice) this season, with a minus-43 point differential in their six games against that group. This team wasn't a serious contender. The Lakers might not be this April, either, but adding Doncic gives them a far more realistic path to the next great Lakers team. Dallas Mavericks: F First, let's acknowledge I've made a habit of betting against Mavericks trades to my detriment. I disliked the risk of bringing in Kyrie Irving months before he would become an unrestricted free agent, but Irving re-signed with Dallas rather than joining the Lakers -- now an even more remarkable sliding-doors moment -- and has been terrific for the Mavericks. At last year's trade deadline, I thought Dallas took too much risk for too little benefit by dealing a first-round pick and a swap to get Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington. Adding those two starters ultimately helped the Mavericks reach the NBA Finals. Of course, the whole reason those risks were worthwhile for Dallas was improving the chances of extending Doncic beyond his current contract. Now that the Mavericks have traded him for a player nearly six years older, they're willingly putting themselves on the high wire yet again. Don't take my grade as a dismissal of Davis, who earned one of my votes to start the All-Star Game in the Western Conference frontcourt this season. Although Davis hasn't been quite as dominant defensively as when he finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2019-20 and the Lakers won the championship, his 30% usage rate is his highest with the Lakers and has come with only modest decline in terms of efficiency. The biggest issue here is simply the aging curve. As he approaches his mid-30s, Davis is likely to see his production decline just as Doncic is reaching his peak years. By 2027, when Dallas will send a top-2 protected pick to the Charlotte Hornets from the Washington deal, Davis will be 34. By 2030, when the last of the Mavericks' pick obligations (a swap with the San Antonio Spurs) conveys, Davis will be 37. It's probable Davis will still be a good player by then, perhaps even an All-Star. It's unrealistic to expect he'll be as good as Doncic. Secondarily, Davis' fit in Dallas is questionable. For all his comments about wanting to play with a center (including in a recent interview with ESPN's Shams Charania), Davis no longer spaces the floor well enough to be maximized alongside a non-shooting big man. Since making 38% of his 3s en route to the Lakers' title in 2020, Davis is at 26% beyond the arc. When healthy, the Mavericks already boasted a pair of strong centers in 2023 lottery pick Dereck Lively II and Gafford, who's excelled as a starter in Lively's absence due to an ankle stress fracture. Davis will likely go from almost exclusively playing center for the Lakers to almost never doing so in Dallas. That, in turn, affects Washington. He's effective driving against slower defenders as a power forward, but now will presumably slide to the wing to make room for Davis. Washington will have an advantage against smaller opponents in the post, but it's unclear if the Mavericks will have enough spacing in their starting lineup to benefit from it. Down the road, Dallas can reshape the roster around Davis to a degree, but there's urgency to win now given the ages of Davis and Irving (33 in March). The Mavericks need things to click quickly. Adding the healthy Davis should help this season, particularly with Lively and Kleber sidelined. As well as the Lakers had played lately, Dallas had been trending the opposite direction. Fourth in the West at the time Doncic went down on Christmas Day, the Mavericks have fallen to eighth by going 7-14 since, including 5-8 in the 13 games Irving has played. This trade can help Dallas stabilize and have a realistic shot at avoiding the play-in tournament. Still, such a move requires thinking beyond the next four months. Let's stipulate the Mavericks were right to be concerned about Doncic's conditioning, as ESPN's Tim MacMahon reported, or even that his impressive stats overstated his impact. (That case is getting harder to make with each loss, particularly in the wake of last year's Finals run.) If all that is true, Dallas still should have gotten more in return for Doncic. I suppose I can understand wanting to avoid the distraction of open bidding for Doncic -- and the Mavericks did manage to keep their negotiations historically quiet -- but the only way that works is to use the threat of hanging up the phone to get the best package possible. It's inconceivable Dallas didn't end up with everything of value the Lakers had to offer in this trade, including the 2031 first-rounder, Knecht and pick swaps. Given Doncic's desirability, the Mavericks should have operated with maximum leverage instead of making a deal short of perfect. Even if things work out perfectly, in an analogy befitting the team's ownership, Dallas left money on the table. Utah Jazz: B The Jazz were needed for this deal, their second of the day, because the Lakers can't take back more salary in a trade than they send out without triggering a hard cap at the lower luxury-tax apron. The Lakers are currently $9.2 million over that apron and just $1.6 million away from the second apron, which is now a hard cap because they had to aggregate salaries in this trade. Hood-Schifino was expendable after the Lakers declined his third-year option, an atypical outcome for the No. 17 pick of the 2023 draft. Hood-Schifino struggled in limited action as a rookie and had played just two NBA games this season before suffering a hamstring strain that has him on the sidelines. As part of a rebuild, Utah can look at Hood-Schifino the rest of the season with no obligation beyond that. The Jazz, who will take Hood-Schifino into a trade exception, got a couple of picks likely to land in the back half of the 2025 second round for their trouble.
One other thing worth noting is I believe Doncic is now INELIGIBLE for the super max on his next extension, as only the home team can offer him the super max extension. This really screws over Doncic and makes him possibly the cheapest superstar player as the rest would be making the supermax.
The Mavs don't want to rebuild, they traded for a 31 year old. Given that what better package was available? Picks mean nothing to them, for years they've been giving any picks they had to marginally improve the team. AD is injury prone but he's still a top 10 player. https://nbarankings.theringer.com/ Based on this they traded the 4th best player for the 9th best and someone who's a DPOY level player and an amazing fit with their remaining star. Yes, I personally think the trade was stupid as hell but if you try to put yourself in the Mavs' shoes and align with their goals, isn't AD the single best asset that you could have received in this trade outside of maybe Giannis?
He essentially lost $100m in guaranteed over the next 5 years. 5 year supermax w/ Mavs: $345m 5 year standard max w/ Lakers: $247m
I can not think of a more shocking sports trade in my lifetime. This is truly unreal. Dallas has to know something that we don't. They could have had a ton of options available to them if they put him on the block. I'm guessing right now the Rockets are not happy they didn't get a chance to consider it.
Never said he was, but any team you trade better have that level of player for Luka. They obviously are getting talent back in AD, not a bunch of hopeful picks in the future for arguably a top-3 to top-5 talent in Luka. For example, wth is Brooklyn going to trade in terms of talent? Mavs want something back, and I would assume it would be something more than just picks that you don't know where they'll land and/or if they'll even turn out good.
Heres the thing even if they really wanted AD and nobody else, they still could've dealt Luka to a 3rd team for the biggest haul ever, and then used some of those assets to get AD and still have spare change. Lmao. It only happened this way because of shady ****
Supermax was originally created for teams to offer a financial incentive to keep their home grown star. Keep them from losing to a bigger market. This time it had the opposite effect. GMs / teams feeling it's too expensive and rather trade their star than negotiate a number both sides are comfortable with.
https://basketball.realgm.com/wiret...-Longer-Eligible-For-Five-Year-$345M-Supermax Luka Doncic is no longer eligible for the five-year, $345 million supermax extension after getting traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Doncic would have been eligible for the supermax contract this summer. Doncic could sign a three-year deal this summer to earn ten years of service heading into the 2028-29 season, where a supermax contract would start at $72 million a season.
If Presti is the epitome of the "good" GM, Pelinka is the epitome of the lucky GM. How d hell do you end up with Lebron, AD and now Luka falling into your lap? Like Mavs literally called Pelinka to give away Luka for AD and a pick? Gimme the job Lakers I can also say yes just like Pelinka.
and let’s not forget the rigged draft lottery that allowed LA to acquire AD in the first place. this league is ukraine level corrupt
the giant LA market and global brand. if pelinka was working in salt lake or indy he’d be all out of luck
They are trying to twist it like its some equal deal lol. Dallas is still a great team, AD is a top player...the issue is he's 31 and Charles and the crew call him 'Street Clothes'. They traded their entire future away. There is no excuse for it. Their core is now crazy Kyrie who can at any moment decide he wants to be a monk or something and Street Clothes AD. Even if they say behind closed doors Luka was this or that, bidding war. They would have gotten a complete war chest for Luka. It really should be investigated, has to be some bribery or something going on here.
