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The Luka Doncic trade was always going to be regarded as a disaster. It was hard to anticipate that the Mavericks would give up on the return from it so quickly though.
Anthony Davis played in only 29 games for the Mavericks after being traded for Doncic, including zero playoff games for a team that was coming off an NBA Finals appearance. With Davis turning 33 next month, Dallas saw the writing on the wall and got what they could for him. They are now free to fully restart a rebuild with Cooper Flagg.
Did they get enough? And was it wise for the rebuilding Wizards to be the ones to make the move to acquire him? Here's how each team did.
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Anthony Davis trade details
Mavericks receive:
- Khris Middleton
- AJ Johnson
- Malaki Branham
- Marvin Bagley III
- 2026 first round pick (via Thunder)
- 2030 first round pick (via Warriors, protected 1-20)
Wizards receive:
- Anthony Davis
- Jaden Hardy
- D'Angelo Russell
- Dante Exum
Wizards trade grade
Back in 2023 when Michael Winger was first hired to take over the Wizards, he made a promise to his fans that he was going to build a sustainable contender and wouldn't take shortcuts along the way.
That was an admirable goal given how Washington was stuck in the middle for so long. The Wizards endured some tough years, replenishing their draft assets and getting some promising young talent in the door. Then they hit the turbo button, trading first for Trae Young and now for Davis.
The cost in trading for those two was very low. One of the first-round picks that they sent out for Davis should be the 30th in this year's draft. The other, from the Warriors, will probably never convey. This sure does appear to be a shortcut though.
Both Young and Davis are not good values on their current deals. Young is extension-eligible, and one has to wonder if the Wizards are going to sign him to an even worse contract now that it appears that they are making a push towards winning now.
MORE: Trae Young trade grade
Davis came in as the fifth-worst contract in the league in my contract rankings. He is still in the first year of a three-year, $175 million contract with a player option for $63 million in 2027-28 that will make him one of the highest-paid players in the league.
Davis is still a good player, but that deal will pay him the same as Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum, and other top-tier stars. Not only is he not as good as those players, he's nowhere near as durable.
The big issue with Davis' deal is that he misses so many games. The problem has gotten worse as he's gotten older. He made it through only 51 games last year and may only play 20 this year.
It would have made at least some sense for a contender to trade for that deal next season if they were desperate for one last piece to take them over the top, overpaid or not. For a rebuilding team to willingly give up assets for that contract, no matter how small those assets are, doesn't make much sense.
The Wizards will be better with Davis in the immediate future. The pick-and-roll combination of Young and Davis makes a lot of sense on paper. Davis should be able to clean up a lot of Young's defensive limitations as well. But Winger promised his fans the goal of a championship-contending roster.
This is a low price, and it feels good to get out of the basement of the East. Most people will be in favor of this deal for that reason, and the grade that I'm going to give is going to get a lot of heat. But the low-cost crowd isn't giving enough weight to the alternative scenario that the Wizards had. They could have spent their cap space more wisely, continuing to accrue draft picks for bad contracts until they find a superstar worth building around. Getting Davis is a move that they should have passed on.
Grade: C-
MORE: Luka Doncic is the worst trade in NBA history
Mavericks trade grade
The fact that this is all that was out there for Davis shows how bad his contract is viewed around the league. The players that they got back are underwhelming, as are the draft assets.
At least they made the decision to trade Davis though, which is a move that former lead executive Nico Harrison probably wouldn't have done. Dallas had the option of digging its heels in and wasting next year with Davis and Kyrie Irving. Instead, they saw that they weren't good enough to compete with the best in the West even when their team was fully healthy.
This trade gives Dallas the chance to totally remake its team and plan its moves around what is best for Rookie of the Year favorite Cooper Flagg. It also makes them a worse team for the rest of the year, which is very important given that the only draft pick of theirs that they control over the next several years is in 2026. They can bottom out now and try to get one of the studs in this loaded upcoming draft.
The Mavericks also had plenty of financial reasons for making this trade. At 12th place in an ultra-competitive Western Conference, it did not make much sense for them to be a taxpaying team. They got out of the tax and both aprons, giving them flexibility to make future trades.
Mavericks fans probably won't like this trade. If anything, it will stoke up even more (justified) anger about trading Doncic. But turning the page and trading Davis was the first step towards moving on from what will probably go down as the worst trade in NBA history.
Grade: C+
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