It’s hard to get a headline right now, with the 24/7 news dump out of Washington and the Super Bowl coming up on Sunday. But the NBA managed to get some ink, not with anything happening on the court but instead something in HR. That’s because on Saturday night, news started to leak that Dallas Mavericks scoring superstar Luka Doncic was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for center Anthony Davis. There were a couple of other players and draft picks in the deal, but this was largely a straight up, one star for another, an absolute rarity in the player driven landscape of the modern NBA. Which is why the news that a 25-year-old star who led his team to the NBA Finals last season was being shipped to LA for another star with admittedly far less upside managed to make headlines.
Beyond shock and awe, most basketball analysts and fans first reaction was that Dallas had just made a bad deal. That’s not challenging science, as Doncic is six years younger and has elite NBA scoring ability. Davis is a career all-star but also an aging big man whose best days are likely behind him and is more Robin than Batman, certainly not the player you’d barter straight up for a 25-year-old who can put up 50 in a night. Doncic critics, including those who work for the Mavs, might suggest he’s lazy on defense and carries about 20 pounds more than he should, both true. But that feels far more baby and bathwater in a world where super elite talent is exceptionally hard to come by.
Not surprisingly, there has been some backlash from Dallas fans who had hoped their favorite team’s ownership was as interested in winning as they are. In response, the team is apparently offering refunds to season ticket holders who want off the bus. I suppose this is like buying tickets to the Producers on Broadway and realizing Nathan Lane has been replaced by an understudy. Only you bought tickets for 41 shows.
A lot of the postscript on this trade, which some people have labeled the biggest in NBA history, is about why the Mavericks made this deal, and whether it can be framed as good or bad. And a significant part of the discourse involves things that happen off the court. One particular line of reasoning is that Dallas got rid of Doncic now to avoid signing him to an NBA supermax contract, around $345 million over five years. By moving him to LA, they aren’t locked into a player that earns 35% of the salary cap, especially if they don’t believe he’s the one – either because of his defense or physique or something else. For the record, going to LA could cost Doncic somewhere between 50 and 100 million in the short term.
The Mavs also made an argument that defense wins championships, and Anthony Davis does play more of that than Doncic. That said, another thing that wins titles is points, and no one gets more of those than Luka. There’s some other theories floating around, like that team’s new owners want to move the Mavs to Las Vegas to consolidate with their casino business, and making this team awful first will help Dallas want to say good bye. And there’s chatter that Luka just doesn’t get along with team management, and this is simply a way to get rid of a difficult employee.
It's hard to know what balance of these are either true or were the tipping point for why this deal got done. And just for the record, it’s not hard to understand why LA did it. It’s the same reason you say yes when your boss tells you to take Friday off. But what we can say is that the assumed goal of a sports franchise – namely to win a title – isn’t always the first or only goal of a team owner. I’m not saying this was a good move, one described as the dumbest trade ever, but I’m also not going to say that Dallas ownership didn’t get something they wanted. Whether that’s saving money, political posturing, control of labor, or even a better team down the line. I’m guessing they got something that for whatever reason was more important than winning right now.
Because thanks to this trade, that just got way more unlikely.
Keith Strudler is the Dean of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler.
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