Needless to say, the shocking trade of Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis needs some examination. Here’s a quick review:
Who won the trade?
Well, my gut reaction is that the Lakers feel like decisive winners. AD Is a great player but he is six years older than Luka and Doncic’s shot creation skills are elite and not readily available on the open market. For reference, here is the stat lines for AD and Doncic for this year:
Davis: 34.3 mpg, 25.7 ppg, .528 FG%, .298 3FG%, .601 TS%, 11.9 rpg, 3.4 apg, 1.3 spg, 2.1 bpg, 27.4 PER, .208 WS48, 5.8 BPM
Doncic: 35.7 mpg, 28.1 ppg, .464 FG%, .354 3FG%, .584 TS%, 8.3 rpg, 7.8 apg, 2.0 spg, 0.4 bpg, 24.6 PER, .182 WS48, 7.0 BPM
The stats are pretty close but Luka has played injured all year and was even better the last two years. His advanced stats for 2022 through 2024 are a good deal better:
28.4 PER, .614 TS%, .212 WS48, 9.5 BPM.
For a little context, since Luka came into the League in 2018-19, the only players to exceed that level of BPM production are Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden (Rockets version), and this season’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (so far).
Davis is a great player but not quite the same league as Luka. By way of another comparison, since 2020-21, Luka has been, at least, in the top eight in the MVP voting each season and Davis has not received a single vote during the same span. That fairly reflects the difference in value.
So, why did the Mavs trade Luka?
According to ESPN reports, the Mavs had “concerns over his conditioning and the potential supermax contract he’d be eligible to sign this summer is the biggest takeaway from as big of a trade as the NBA has seen in quite some time.” In other words, Dallas didn’t want to pay Luka the supermax extension this summer (about $350 million over five years that would take him into his early 30s) because he is heavy and injured a lot. Yes, Luka has had lingering calf issues and doesn’t look like the most svelte guy but he’s only 25 and the risk of accelerated aging of athletes typically doesn’t really kick in until they reach their 30s anyway.
Instead, Dallas is locked in with a team built around a 31-year old Davis, who is owed $175 million through 2027-28 (he can opt out after 2026-27), and a 32-year old Kyrie Irving, who will opt out this summer and will get a max extension that could cost near $300 million.
When considering downside risk, AD and Kyrie carry plenty too. Kyrie is a smaller guard who relies on incredible quickness and is entering the danger zone where his performance could decline from star level. He’s been a great teammate and player in Dallas, but his numbers already appear to be retreating a bit each year for the Mavs:
2022-23: 38.2 mpg, 27.0 ppg, .510 FG%, .392 3FG%, .634 TS%, 6.0 apg, 24.0 PER, .198 WS48, 4.9 BPM
2023-24: 35.0 mpg, 25.6 ppg, .497 FG% .411 3FG%, .608 TS%, 5.2 apg, 21.9 PER, .163 WS48, 4.9 BPM
2024-25: 35.9 mpg, 24.3 ppg, .479 FG%, .415 3FG%, .598 TS%, 4.6 apg, 19.7 PER, .143 WS48, 3.4 BPM
As for AD, his numbers have been stable the last three years:
2022-23: 27.8 PER, .226 WS48, 6.3 BPM
2023-24: 25.8 PER, .210 WS48, 5.1 BPM
2024-25: 27.4 PER, .208 WS48, 5.8 BPM
He’s not quite at his dominant peak of 2017 through 2020 (28.8 PER, .246 WS48, 7.9 BPM) but AD has aged pretty well (of course, like Luka and Kyrie, AD has had injury issues in the past). We can only intuit that Dallas GM Nico Harrison really feels that adding Davis for Luka makes the Mavs a serious title contender now. Otherwise, he would have shopped Doncic on the open market or attempted to extract the Lakers 2031 first-round pick.
Harrison’s vision in this case is…..questionable. The Mavs built around Kyrie and AD should be good but they don’t move the needle over a Luka-led team. Davis has long had a hankering to play power forward, even though an AD pairing with Daniel Gafford or Dereck Lively would not be great for offensive spacing because they can be left unguarded at the three-point line. Dallas’ defense would be great, of course, but the give back on offense is too much, particularly when they still must replace Luka’s points as well. In short, Dallas now looks like a solid team, with a lower ceiling, that will be heavily relying on two older players.
It’s a fascinating deal because the Mavs’ assessment of the relative value of Luka and AD are so at odds with the majority opinion on the subject. It is possible that Dallas knows Luka better than the public-at-large but anyone watching Luka’s numerous playoff feats has to wonder why Dallas wouldn’t ride that train through his 20s.
Luka and LeBron?
The trade, from the Laker perspective, appears to be a gentle nudge to LeBron James to consider a new role or new team. Luka’s skill-set (ball dominant shot creation) and weakness (defense) duplicate those of the 40-year-old LBJ. With respect to offense, James hasn’t usually given up the ball much in his career. Here are James’ highest teammate usage rates in his carer:
Dwyane Wade 2010-11: 31.6
Dwyane Wade 2011-12: 31.3
Kyrie Irving 2016-17: 30.8
Anthony Davis 2024-25: 30.4
Kyrie Irving 2015-16: 29.5
Dwyane Wade 2012-13: 29.5
Anthony Davis 2019-20: 29.3
Luka has a career usage percentage of 35.6. Doncic and LeBron will have to work that out in the short term but something has to give. The bigger issue is defense. Losing a great defender and adding Luka will have a cascade effect for the Laker defense, in a bad way, with so many vulnerable defenders. I can envision a Jaxson Hayes, LeBron, Luka, and Austin Reaves line up getting shredded on defense.
Because of these factors, there is a chance that the Lakers will regress the rest of the year. But who cares? The Lakers weren’t a serious contender this season as constituted and now, longer term, they can now build a real potential contender around Luka. The Lakers could screw up building around Doncic but the chance is there to set up some title runs again.
As for James, he is ensconced in Los Angeles so he may not want to leave town. At the very least, though, LBJ will have to take a backseat on offense for the first time in his career.
Is this the most shocking trade in NBA history?
Pretty much. I haven’t found another instance of a player so good, and so young, being traded without the player initiating the trade by request or threatening to leave in free agency. The only other even remotely similar instances of young huge stars getting traded on the team’s initiative:
Charles Barkley, 1992: Barkley was 28 at the time and was an MVP-level player when Philly traded him to Phoenix. Barkley did not demand a trade but the 76ers’ regression made the trade unsurprising and Barkley has stated that he was about to request a trade when the deal went down.
Jason Kidd, 1996: Kidd was 23 and the trade from Dallas to Phoenix definitely shocked him but he wasn’t quite an inner circle MVP-type player yet. Moreover, Kidd had requested a trade a few months earlier (as a fall out of his feud with Jim Jackson) before retracting the demand.
Jason Kidd, 2001: Kidd was a top point guard in 2001 when Phoenix traded him to New Jersey but the trade was caused by Kidd’s domestic violence issues. This was a moderately surprising challenge trade but not a shocker given Kidd’s criminal case.
Bob McAdoo, 1976: The closest case I could find to the Luka trade was McAdoo in 1976. Both were young MVP-level stars. The Braves traded a 25-year-old McAdoo to the Knicks in 1976-77. From 1973 to 1976, McAdoo had scored 32 ppg and 13.8 rpg and won an MVP and been an MVP runner up the other two seasons. In the 1976 NBA, McAdoo was as young and valuable as Luka is today. The NBA, however, was not the big money maker that it is now and the Braves didn’t want to pay McAdoo’s looming extension.
McAdoo explained the situation in “Garden Glory” that: “I hadn’t requested a trade. What was coming up was the fifth year of my contract and since I was a superstar, nobody knew what the compensation was going to be if I decided to bolt…[Owner John Y. Brown] was an ABA guy who didn’t want to pay. I was up for a pay raise because I had been the best player in the league.” McAdoo was traded for workman-like center John Gianelli and cash (with the emphasis on the cash). McAdoo was pretty good in New York but became radioactive when he negotiated his future contracts like a proto-Jimmy Butler.