NFL
By: Ashmere Prasad
Last night, the most insane trade in NBA history took place: The Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Doncic (and Maxi Kleber, Markieff Morris) to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and a 2029 LAL 1st round pick.
For West Coast fans the alert came through at 9 pm PST, 12 am EST. Some Mavs fans will wake up to a CRAZY series of events. Now that a few hours have passed and more information has been shared let’s break down this trade. They had an idea of what they wanted to accomplish: get AD and trade Doncic.
“I had a current NBA All-Star text me and say, ‘Do you know how much the Mavericks must hate Luka?’”
–@WindhorstESPN on how the league is reacting to the Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis trade pic.twitter.com/Z1afOJQm17
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 2, 2025
This summer, Doncic was eligible for a supermax contract with the Mavericks for around $345 million. Now that he has been traded, he is no longer eligible for the contract. A supermax contract is a five-year contract in the NBA that allows a team to re-sign a star player for up to 35% of the salary cap. Think of players like Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jaylen Brown.
After scouring through all the conversations on X and Instagram, NBA insiders have explained that the Mavericks reached out to the Lakers a few days ago with this trade option. No one knew this trade was coming their way. Doncic had no idea this was happening. Neither did Lebron James or Anthony Davis, the entire league was shocked to see the news on their social media pages.
Doncic is a 25-year-old superstar. He led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals last year. He dropped 73 points against the Atlanta Hawks last January. He is slightly injury-prone, but we all know his potential. Although the Lakers deserve kudos for signing their new franchise player of the league for the next 10 years, everyone is wondering what drove the Mavs to move Doncic so stealthily and without his knowledge.
This trade came out of left field, and NBA fans are speculating more shocking trades will come about before the trade deadline on Feb. 6th at 3 pm EST.
