The NBA trading frenzy
It is legit, Luka Doncic, an MVP player and Dallas Mavericks stone core franchise player is being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and a first-round pick in a three-way trade with the Mavericks, Lakers and Jazz.
The trade was announced on Feb. 1 by Shams Charania on X and shocked the internet.
And as I type, another player has been traded and the San Antonio Spurs are involved. The two-day stretch between the first and second of Feb. have been utterly ridiculous. De’Aaron Fox has been traded to the Spurs in a multi-team trade including the Chicago Bulls and Sacramento Kings.
New Looks Around the League
The Spurs are giving up Tre Jones, Zach Collins, Sidy Cissoko, five first-round picks, and one second-round pick. In return, they received De’Aaron Fox and Jordan McLaughlin. Zach Lavine is also involved in this exchange. He will be heading to Sacramento joining forces with DeMar DeRozan yet again alongside former Spur Sidy Cissoko. The Kings are receiving multiple picks from this trade from both Chicago and San Antonio.
The Lakers Outcome
Going back to the Lakers trade. Doncic will continue his career with Lebron James and the Lakers and impact the team in both good and bad ways. The Laker’s offense will increase in ball movement and shot-making making it more profound taking account to Doncic’s high level of scoring within and outside the arc. On the contrary, the on-ball defense and off-ball defense will decrease dramatically as they remove their defensive juggernaut Anthony Davis, and Doncic already has a reputation of poor defensive plays.
Dallas’s New Path
On the Dallas side of the trade, they are heavily implying “win now” motives for getting rid of their young superstar for an already experienced and a solution to the team’s defense, Anthony Davis. He will form the trio for Dallas along with Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson. Although these moves sound reasonable, the Mavericks just traded their best player who is at his prime and still young. Luka Doncic was the reason the Mavericks made it to the finals last year so to get rid of him is a very hefty choice.
The Spurs New Future
For the Spurs trade, they received the star point guard they wanted in order to shine with Wembanyama. Fox is a great scorer and his speedy gameplay allows him to shine. He will need to adapt to the Spurs team ball movement, but it shouldn’t be anything too difficult since the Sacramento offense is similar to the movement of the Spurs. He will improve the team’s defense and pace allowing more options for scoring. His connection with Wemby will be great since his former teammate Domantas Sabonis brings the same amount of dominance in the paint making Fox and Wemby a formidable duo in the future.
The Bulls and Kings blurry journey
For Chicago and Sacramento, are trying to fix their teams’ rosters. Chicago has struggled to lean on the winning side and is now committing to resetting for the future giving away their best player. The Sacramentos situation is odd, as they have been struggling at the start of the season with a loss of direction for what they want. Giving away their star for another star may imply their reconstruction short term wise since they gave their younger star away, same as the Luka trade.
Conclusion
Overall, the league went on a trading frenzy exchanging multiple talented players around the league, changing the history and timeline for the NBA forever. These trades have been astonishing taking in the fact that generational talents who were not thought to be traded will now continue their promising future in new threads. By far the trade will go down in history as one of the biggest and shocking moves in not only NBA history but sport history as a whole.
Spurs fans can judge for themselves tonight when the Spurs take on the Atlanta Hawks at 6:00 p.m. in Atlanta with De’Aaron Fox debut with his new team. Catch the game on ESPN and Fanduel Sports Network.
