Because one must write about trades: The Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis deal that blindsided a nation

Wild night at work, wild night in the NBA.  Just another day at the office.

All NBA geeks remember where they were when blockbuster trades went down.  In the past, I’ve written about where I was when I heard Shaquille O’Neal got traded to the Lakers.  It was a sad day in Orlando for sure.  Little did Magic fans know how sad it would be.

‘Twas another such night on Saturday when a friend texted me to say the Lakers were involved in another blockbuster deal.  Leave it to the Lakers to hijack Super Bowl week.

Anthony Davis.  Gone!  No longer a Laker.  Luka Doncic, hello Los Angeles!

It was a trade that took the league, media, and the internet by storm.  ESPN went live all night.  Bill Simmons released a surprise podcast.  He wasn’t the only one.  Everyone had a take that they wanted to share.  Most astonishingly, there were reports that, after an impressive Lakers’ victory against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden without an injured Anthony Davis, that LeBron James, who was out to dinner with his family at a New York restaurant, was informed of the news, and that it came as a shock.  Imagine if Davis had been out to dinner with him.

Believe what you will as skewed modern media leaves us with an endless array of untrustworthy sources for anything verifiable.  When it comes down to the Luca-AD deal, we may never know the full truth. 

It doesn’t matter really.  What does matter is how this deal may have changed the game, and not just for the two teams involved or even this year’s eventual NBA champion.  There will be ripples.

For the longest time, the biggest knock on the league was that the players, particularly its megastars, wielded too much power, holding owners hostage and dictating the terms of their own deals.  Well, if two megastars being traded for each other, with a third, the long-time face of the league not knowing a damn thing about it, then chalk this up to NBA owners taking the power back.

I’m not going to bore you with who I think got the better of the deal, although to simplify matters, it appears the Mavs got the better of it in the short term while the Lakers got the better of it down the road, but one can only assume there’s more musical chairs about to be pulled before we can make any reasonable conclusions.

This deal was a shock to the system, something totally unseen, a secret perfectly kept and a trade that might change how the game, or rather the business, is conducted as players, no matter how powerful their position or presence in the community, are reminded that anyone is expendable.

I have this friend who hates Kevin Durant.  Perhaps “hate” is a strong word, resents more appropriate.  He feels to this day that Kevin Durant took the easy road by opting to win multiple titles in Golden State, shifting the NBA’s balance of power rather unfairly towards Oakland between 2016 and 2019.  My friend never questioned Durant’s talent, always recognizing him as one of the greatest offensive players in the game’s history but would have preferred to see Durant build a dynasty on his own rather than join one already in progress.

It’s funny how we do that as fans, imposing our loyalty on others, questioning career paths as we see fit.  I dabble in the stock market for small stakes.  I can’t tend bar forever, you know, and this blogging thing barely pays my light bill.  When I see a stock tanking, or read there may be no future in it, I dump it.  That’s what NBA players are: assets, or worse, liabilities.  And at no point in recent history were players, especially the blue chips, reminded of that than on Saturday night when the Dallas Mavericks’ most prized possession, their one-time face of the future, was shipped westward without a moment’s notice.

Here’s Kevin Durant on the shocker of a trade in a post-game locker room interview that’s worth the listen. 

Durant, humbled, a veteran knowing his place in the game now more than ever, a Hall of Famer who has in large part dictated the terms of his own career, playing for four different teams, five if you include Seattle, understood that the role of the player is controlled by the men who sign his paychecks, as large as they may be.  In a “transactional” game, one is lucky to earn leverage that doesn’t last forever, or in Luca’s case, at all.

There are viral videos of benches around the league, players shocked by the news, some of them hearing it from fans in the stands, all of them instantly reminded of the NBA pecking order and all understanding that if a trade went down for a player once thought untouchable, once thought the face of a franchise, then anything is possible and anyone expendable.

Luka led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals last year.  He was beloved with the promise of something greater.  Most agreed an MVP (or multiple) and a title (or multiple) were foregone conclusions for Luka, and they might be.  They just won’t happen in Dallas.

This trade might not result in titles for L.A. or Dallas.  There were better teams in the league before the trade and there are better teams after it.  But this is the first time any of us can remember the game’s biggest names not having some say in how it all went down, a seismic shift reminding all of us of who ultimately makes the calls, regardless of how beneficial or detrimental they might be.

Please follow and like us:
Pin Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*