Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis NBA deal all about dollars and not as much sense

Luka Doncic, right, talks with Mavericks assistant coach Jared Dudley, left, during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Denver Nuggets in Dallas, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. Credit: AP/Tony Gutierrez
You’re shocked, and you’re not alone. A late-night trade that seemed to come out of nowhere Saturday into early Sunday left superstars shifting cities and resetting expectations maybe for the entire NBA.
But maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised that Luka Doncic and Anthony Davis were the centerpieces of a deal just days before Thursday’s trade deadline, that a face of the franchise in the 25-year-old Doncic — Mark Cuban once joked that if he had to choose between trading Doncic and losing his wife, you could find him at his divorce lawyer’s office — was moved before hitting the prime years of his career.
And when I say you’re not alone, I include Kevin Durant, who told reporters late Saturday night: “Insane. It’s crazy. Crazy. I would have never thought Luka Doncic gets traded at his age, midseason. NBA is a wild place, man. If he can get traded, then anybody is up for grabs.”
Durant, who has shifted through four franchises despite arguably being a top 10 player in NBA history, should know better. And he does. Listen to what else he said as he processed the news:
“It’s a transactional game. There’s a lot of money involved, lot of business involved. We shouldn’t be too shocked about trades and guys moving to different teams, coaches moving to different teams. It’s the nature of playing basketball and us making this much money, too. It’s a pretty wild time for the NBA, especially about trade deadline time.”
The game maybe always has been about money, but not to this extent. The contracts have gotten so huge and the collective bargaining agreement so restrictive that a decision even on a generational talent will make or break a franchise.
It isn’t just about performance when you consider trading a player such as Doncic, who has an NBA resume that includes five straight seasons of first-team All-NBA status. He never has finished lower than eighth in MVP balloting in those seasons — after winning Rookie of the Year in a landslide — and led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals last season.
It’s about money and the future, and the future for Doncic and the Mavs was a pricey one. Next year, he would have been eligible for a super-max extension of five years and $346 million.
Forget about the numbers on the extension he can sign now with the Lakers. It will cost him about $115 million because, like Jalen Brunson last summer, expect a shorter-term extension that will allow him to opt out and then sign as a 10-year veteran at top dollar. The Lakers will have their showtime piece in place as the LeBron James era comes to an end.
It allows the Mavericks to slip under the luxury tax and avoid handing out that huge contract to a player whom they had doubts about in terms of conditioning and commitment.
Fair point, perhaps, and one that teams such as the 76ers likely wish they’d considered before handing out a huge deal to Joel Embiid. Both Davis and Doncic are sidelined right now with injuries.
The Knicks can understand, having pulled off their own shocking deal on the eve of training camp when they sent Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo to Minnesota for Karl-Anthony Towns. That deal had as much to do with dollars as sense.
Minnesota is in an ownership battle and was committed to building around Anthony Edwards and not paying Towns’ massive contract extension.
The Knicks had become a contender with Randle but were hesitant to give him the pricey contract extension he was seeking. There already have been rumblings that the Timberwolves are ready to move on from Randle, who can become an unrestricted free agent at season’s end.
For the Mavericks, the hardest part to understand might be why they didn’t reach out to every team in the league with a young star whom they’d never deal . . . unless someone called offering Doncic. But it’s not just a game of dollars; it’s also a game of connections.
Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison has a long relationship with Davis dating to his days as a Nike executive. In that same role, he developed a friendship with Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka, who was the agent for Kobe Bryant at the time. Mavericks coach Jason Kidd was an assistant coach with the Lakers and Davis.
Could Davis help a Mavs squad that hasn’t lived up to expectations at 26-24? Could there be some truth to the leaks that Doncic wasn’t committed to conditioning and won’t age well in the game?
The only certainty is that the Mavericks, who recently shifted ownership, are saving millions in the long term. Handing the franchise to aging stars Davis and Kyrie Irving is a risk, but maybe it’s a risk that is worth taking in the win-now window that coaches and executives live under.
It’s certainly a move that could portend an interesting next few days leading up to the trade deadline, one that shows that even in the restrictive era of cap rules, anything is possible.
“You start seeing stuff like that, as an organization, you might get a little bit more courage to do some stuff,” Durant said. “You see another team trade away somebody like that. This got to be the biggest trade I’ve seen since I’ve been in the league or since I’ve been watching the sport. This is insane.
“So yeah, every other team might get confidence and say [expletive] it, I’ll trade a few of my top players if this ain’t working.”
Comparing the superstars:
DONCIC DAVIS
25 Age 31
$43.0M 2024-25 Salary $43.2M
7 NBA Seasons 13
60 Avg. Games Played 60
28.6 PPG 24.2
8.3 Assists 2.5
8.7 Rebounds 10.7
5 All-Star Games 9
4 First-team All-NBA 4