It’s been over a month since the Los Angeles Lakers traded 10-time All-Star center Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks for 26-year-old star point guard Luka Doncic in one of the biggest trades in NBA history.
The deal came together in secret, taking seemingly everyone by surprise, and many fans and analysts still can’t get past the fact that a player of Doncic’s caliber was even available to begin with.
Few can blame the Lakers for parting with Davis, a four-time first team All-NBA and three-time first-team All-Defensive selection, plus 22-year-old shooting guard Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick to land a superstar face-of-the-franchise type player in Doncic.
And while Davis may not have been asked to be traded, his disposition about where the Lakers stood as a franchise certainly played a big role in the team’s decision to trade him, according to team owner Jeanie Buss.
We gave up a lot to get Luka Doncic; we’re happy we have him,” Buss recently said in an interview with NPR. “We have lost the last three years in a row to the Denver Nuggets in the playoffs, and we really didn’t have anything that was going to look different going into the playoffs again. Anthony Davis was complaining about where he was being played, and he wasn’t happy.
So I think this was a positive for both teams. They got what they were looking for; we got what we were looking for. And I didn’t realize it was going to be international news like it was, but that’s the power of the Laker brand and its ability to draw big names who want to write their own chapter in Lakers history.”
Buss previously noted that the Lakers weren’t actively shopping Davis when they were approached by the Mavericks, but the allure of acquiring a potential franchise-changing talent like Doncic was simply too enticing to pass up.
Likely among Davis’ chief issues with the Lakers was his preference to play more power forward and less center. He event told ESPN’s Shams Charania back in January L.A. needed to “acquire another big” so he could switch positions.
Though he’s been out since getting injured in his Mavericks debut back on Feb. 8, the expectation is when Davis returns he will get his wish and primarily play power forward and move away from center.
