Charles Barkley has weighed in on the blockbuster NBA trade that happened over the weekend, and says the Dallas Mavericks are the clear short-term winners.

Appearing on “Get Up,” Barkley said the Mavericks decided they didn’t “trust” Luka Doncic’s conditioning and didn’t want to give him a 5-year, $345-million super-max and thus opted to deal him to the L.A. Lakers for Anthony Davis to improve their team defense.

“I’m like, wow, five years, $350 million, they know him better than anybody,” Barkley said of the Mavericks. “They said, ‘We don’t think this guy’s going to…He’s got something going on. He doesn’t get in shape. He’s not a great defender. Do we trust him?’ And they’re like, ‘We don’t trust him.’ Its that plain, it’s that simple. It’s going to be a lot of noise going on around here, but the Mavericks, who know him better than anybody, the coaches and guys around there, the general manager says, ‘We cannot give this guy five years, $350 million, that’s the bottom line, plain and simple.”

Barkley added that the Mavericks, despite giving up a five-time NBA-All-Star in the 25-year-old Doncic, were the winners in the short-term.

“It’s going to be fascinating, probably for the next 10 years,” he said. “The Mavs won the trade for the immediate next three, three or four years, but the Lakers got a bright future if they put the right pieces around Luka.”

After the trade — which marked the first-ever involving two First-Team All-NBA players, the Lakers improved to the sixth favorite to win the NBA championship, while the Mavericks dropped to ninth.

Barkley disagreed with those odds, and said the Mavericks have the better team overall — combining a plethora of long, defensive-oriented players like the 31-year-old Davis, Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II with Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson.

“If you know anything about basketball, you think the Lakers with a bunch of little 6-5, 6-7 guys running around out there, compared to Anthony Davis, Lively, Gafford, Kyrie, Klay, Quentin Grimes,” he said. “If you think that Laker team right now is better than the Mavs? That’s the stupidest [thing]. That’s why they build those pretty buildings in the desert [casinos]. People are stupid.”

Asked about the trade from the Lakers’ perspective, Barkley said LeBron James and Doncic are redundant players who both need the ball in their hands.

“Nobody who knows anything about basketball thinks LeBron and Luka can play together,” Barkley said. “Both of those guys are great, but neither one of them can play without the ball.”

Still, he credited Rob Pelinka and the Lakers front office for doing what is best for the franchise — independent of LeBron.

“This is the first time that the Lakers made a decision where they didn’t care what LeBron thought,” he said. “They’ve done everything that he he’s asked. They bought in AD because of the Klutch Sports thing. This, to me, was the first decision that the Lakers made, like we gotta think about life after LeBron.”

Barkley also said LeBron and the Lakers have a decision to make before Thursday’s trade deadline about whether LeBron should be traded.

If so, Barkley has two destinations where he could challenge for a fifth NBA ring.

“To be honest with you, I swing for the Warriors,” he said. “I would, I would try. First of all, it would be, must watch television to see Steph [Curry]. and LeBron play together. … think the Warriors would be fascinating, because listen Steph and LeBron together, people have been talking about it for years.”

Barkley added: “How about the Spurs? The Spurs got De’Aaron Fox, Wemby [Victor Wembanyama], LeBron. They got 100 draft picks. Hey, I’m telling you, if I’m the Warriors or the Spurs, for De’Aaron to learn from LeBron and Wemby to learn from LeBron, the next couple years. Those are two places I can see will be fascinating.”

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Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter and Basketball Insider for NJ Advance Media. You may follow him on Twitter @AdamZagoria and check out his Website at ZAGSBLOG.com.