BearGoggles said:
As a laker fan, I love this trade, mostly because I don't think the Lebron/Davis core was going to produce another championship. In truth, the Lakers should also consider trading Lebron to build a better team going forward, but reportedly he does not want to be traded.
For those criticizing the trade, I think you're overlooking the fact that Dallas was going to have to give Luka a 5 year/$360+ deal. By virtue of the weird NBA collective bargaining agreement, the max the lakers (or any other team) can offer is around $230M. Dallas didn't want to make that offer, reportedly because of his work ethic/attitude/conditioning issues and also because it would severely impact the ability to build a team around him. And if they don't offer it, then they have a disgruntled player (who reportedly already has a questionable attitude). Dallas was wanting to avoid all of this.
So once Dallas decided to move on from Luca, they targeted probably the only other top 10 player available (Davis) who in their view fits their team need. Any other trade gets them someone not as good as Davis and some future picks. Dallas didn't want futures - they want to try and win now.
Dallas also didn't want news of a potential trade to get out, which would have allowed Luca and his agent to torpedo a deal. Given that reality, the lakers had to take a real risk as to whether Luca will sign an extension. That is why the return from the Lakers was not more.
Good outline of why the trade might not have been as bad for Dallas as most folks are saying.
As one pundit put it: Nobody Knows Doncic better than the Mavs... and they were willing to part with him.
He's still young in years, but he has a lot of mileage on him, for his age.
As far as shopping him around, there could be a downside to that. Word gets out and maybe somebody tries to nix the trade (LeBron?). And when a player is known to be on the trading block, sometimes his value goes down, not up.
Yes, this trade still looks like the future LA Lakers are the winners. Just saying there may be other factors at play. Well, we'll know how it all worked out in as little as five years!