By Zach KramFeb. 2, 7:29 am UTC • 5 min

Most NBA trades are predictable in their buildup and ultimate framework. A pricey team seeks to duck under the luxury tax, or an available role player from a noncontender fills a hole on a playoff team, or a star publicly requests a trade, leading to all manner of rumors and Trade Machine screenshots and podcast debates. There’s a pattern, a flow, an understanding to these things.

But ESPN’s Shams Charania dropped an all-time stunner late on Saturday night, tweeting, completely out of the blue, that the Dallas Mavericks were trading Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis and a first-round pick. It was so surprising that Charania had to start his follow-up tweet with the line, “Yes, this is real,” because the immediate question was whether his account had been hacked.

The trade is indeed real. And given the players and franchises involved and the complete lack of lead-in speculation, it may well be the most stunning deal this century, if not in all of NBA history. 

The full deal, according to Charania, will send Doncic, Maxi Kleber, and Markieff Morris to Los Angeles; Davis, Max Christie, and a 2029 first-round pick to Dallas; and Jalen Hood-Schifino and two second-rounders to Utah. But the headline is clear: Doncic for Davis and a pick. Plus, perhaps, a meltdown among Dallas fans who just lost the 25-year-old face of their franchise in the middle of the night.

That would be rough enough on its own. But Luka isn’t just any face of a franchise; he is, by one measure, the most accomplished young player in NBA history. Luka had five first-team All-NBA nods through age 24, the most ever. The list of players right behind him—which includes his new teammate LeBron James—is a who’s who of some of the best in league history.

Doncic is also an outstanding playoff performer, fresh off a Finals appearance last spring. Only Michael Jordan has a higher career postseason scoring average than Doncic’s 30.9 points per game, and Luka has already been the best player on one Finals team and another that reached the conference finals. In perhaps his defining moment as a Maverick, he crossed up Rudy Gobert, then sank a game-winning 3-pointer in Game 2 of the 2024 conference finals, and screamed, “You can’t fucking guard me!” at the four-time Defensive Player of the Year.

But now, less than a year after that display of immense talent and unvarnished emotion, Dallas decided to say goodbye to the Luka experience. Marc Stein—a reporter well connected in Dallas—revealed Saturday night that Doncic had not requested a trade, and that “the Mavericks did this on their own accord.” 

That decision is so surprising that it inspires questions about the internal qualms Dallas must have felt about its leading star. That seems to be the only logical explanation for why Doncic—a 25-year-old megastar who just ranked fourth on Bill Simmons’s Trade Value —would be available. The team “had major concerns about moving forward with Luka Doncic due to his constant conditioning issues and the looming commitment of another supermax contract extension this summer,” ESPN’s Tim MacMahon tweeted.

The publicly stated rationale was less convincing. “I believe that defense wins championships,” Dallas GM Nico Harrison told MacMahon. “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.”

But the Mavericks already had a solid chance with Luka on the roster. They didn’t merely make the Finals in 2024; they were also 19-10 this season before he suffered an injury on Christmas, and the backcourt pairing of Doncic and Kyrie Irving looked as unguardable as ever. 

In terms of the possible basketball reasons to make this swap, perhaps Harrison was worried about Dereck Lively II’s foot fracture and wanted another center—and Davis was the best one he could’ve traded for, assuming Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama weren’t Perhaps Harrison had seen his team beat the West-leading Thunder three times without Doncic this season and been encouraged by that Luka-less look. Perhaps he wanted to avoid the luxury tax and its roster-building implications. Perhaps he salivated at the prospect of Davis playing next to Kyrie Irving—an ideal thunder-and-lightning duo—years after their first chance at a potential union was scuttled.

Or perhaps Harrison actually had such deep, private fears about Luka’s conditioning and injury history—he hasn’t played more than 70 games in a season since he was a rookie—that he felt the need to make a move right now, before re-extending Luka for nearly $350 million this summer. That’s the only conceivable justification that makes any sort of sense—and even then, the Mavericks reportedly didn’t make Luka’s availability widely known to incite a bidding war.

Meanwhile, Doncic becomes the latest in a long line of Lakers stars welcomed to the glitz and glamor via trade. The metaphorical opportunity for LeBron to pass his torch to Luka seems almost too perfect to be real. And while the Lakers will lose a top-10 player to facilitate that chance, half a decade after a blockbuster trade for Davis propelled them to their most recent title, this is about as easy a no-brainer as is possible with a trade of this magnitude. Luka’s proved he’s that special, time and time again.

And heck, the Lakers surrendered only a single first-round pick in this deal, meaning they still have their 2031 first to deal before the trade deadline if they want to upgrade their roster around Luka and

The context behind that phrase—“Luka and LeBron”—would have sounded meaningless to any NBA fan, even the most ardent Trade Machine obsessive, before Saturday night. Luka and LeBron seemed far more likely to play against each other in the postseason than to play together. Luka’s one of the best players in the NBA, right in his prime age range; LeBron’s, well, LeBron, with a no-trade clause to boot. In what conceivable world would they have ever become teammates?

In a world in which Shams wasn’t hacked, apparently, and in which NBA teams can execute middle-of-the-night blockbusters with the stealth and speed of a fantastical assassin. The entire league changed on Saturday, and nobody—not even Luka, not even LeBron—saw it coming.

Zach Kram

Zach writes about basketball, baseball, and assorted pop culture topics.