To kick off February in the NBA, many trades occurred before the deadline.
But there was one trade that shocked NBA fans the most. It was the blockbuster trade involving Luka Dončić, who many believed was one of the NBA’s most untouchable players in the league today.
Luka Dončić was traded on Feb. 2, 2025, in a trade that involved three different teams: the Dallas Mavericks, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Utah Jazz.
This trade sent Luka Dončić, Maxi Kleber, and Markieff Morris to the Lakers.
Dallas received Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and 2029 first-round pick Jazz received Jalen Hood and a 2025 second-round pick.
This trade was crazy and left fans in shock. No one actually believed it had happened with many NBA players and reporters posting on social media saying it was fake.
Luka Dončić was a young promising superstar who was one of, if not the best players in the league, and they traded him for an aging Anthony Davis. It just didn’t seem real.
Dončić took a young Mavericks team to the finals last year while injury-prone against the juggernaut Celtics and averaging 29.2 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 5.6 assists. He also led his team in every stat in rebounds and points. Dončić was by far the best player on the court in that five-game series.
Why trade away your young star, the future of the Mavs organization for the next 10-13 years for an aging injury-prone big?
There are many reasons and theories as to why they traded away their young talent such as they didn’t want to pay him the $350 million super-max contract.
Nico Harrison, the Mavs general manager, had frustrations with Dončić’s conditioning, his off-court habits, and his defensive capability.
So Harrison decided to tank for a better defender believing that “defense wins championships.”
Harrison said, “I believe that getting an all-defensive center and an all-NBA player with a defensive mindset gives us a better chance. We’re built to win now and in the future.”
Yet this trade still doesn’t make sense to me. If you want to add defense to your team, Dončić is one of the best offensive players we have ever seen in the history of the NBA and his trade value is one of the best.
Why not tank for another big or a big guard combo like Kristaps Porziņģis and Jrue Holiday or even Jarrett Allen or even do a straight-up trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo?
These are all trades that would make more sense than the three-way trade that happened. I believe that this wasn’t a trade to get better, but a trade to purposely have a sales decline and to move the Dallas Mavericks to Las Vegas or put a casino in the American Airlines Center.
Recently, Mark Cuban, the former owner of the Dallas Mavericks sold 73 percent of the Mavericks to Miriam Adelson, who also runs the Las Vegas Sands Casino Sand Company. When Dončić was traded, tickets started to plummet and fans were enraged. They demanded refunds and were upset to see their star go.
With Dončić’s trade, the Mavericks organization will lose millions of dollars from jerseys, tickets, and other merchandise. The Mavericks will be forced to make a big money move in the next two to three years and that’s when Miraim Adelson, a money-hungry billionaire, will decide to put a casino in the stadium or move them to Vegas to make themselves richer.
The Luka Dončić trade had nothing to do with basketball, but with greedy billionaires who just wanted more money.
