Doncic-for-Davis is no big deal....yet

The Lakers and Mavericks hit the sidelines after shaking the NBA foundations on Feb. 1.

Rudy Gobert

It was the type of news that would drive you into a roadside ditch, or make you shank your 6-iron into the marsh. Fortunately it happened late in the evening of Feb. 1, when the roads and fairways were relatively empty, but it forced most people to rub their eyes as they gazed into their phones at sunrise: The Lakers had traded Anthony Davis to the Mavericks for Luka Doncic.

As the Athletic reported, Minnesota’s Mike Conley was among those who spilled his coffee. “How could they let those two guys be on the same team?” he said, envisioning Doncic and LeBron James establishing the best 2-man game since at least Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. “You work your ass off for 18 years and then something like this happens.”

Now Doncic and James and Dallas GM Nico Harrison, who placed the call, and Lakers’ GM Rob Pelinka, who astutely answered it, have something in common for the rest of the playoffs. They will not be participating. Dallas, plundered by injuries and playing in a city where Harrison became less popular than sandstorms, didn’t escape the play-in round. The Lakers were punted out of the first round by Conley’s Timberwolves, in five games, the fifth of which was a 103-96 decision in Los Angeles Wednesday night.

No Laker team that had been among the top three seeds in its conference playoffs had ever lost its first playoff series. Doncic hurt his back late in the second quarter and gritted out 28 points, but he and James (22 points) were 3 for 13 from the 3-point line. Both were in the 5-man unit that had played every minute of the second half Sunday, a Game 4 loss at Minnesota. It’s one thing for the 40-year-old James to score his age, but it’s quite another when he plays his age. He was out there for 46 minutes Sunday and 40 on Wednesday. Remember when Doncic was supposed to lift LeBron’s burdens?

There were a ton of factors specific to this series, but it gave volume to the small voices of early February who insisted that maybe Doncic-for-Davis wasn’t the seminal event in NBA history, that it might not be the immediate cataclysm for either club. Davis got hurt at the end of his first game with Dallas, and by the time he returned, Kyrie Irving was out.

As for the Lakers, they were on an 8-2 run before Harrison’s name flashed on Pelinka’s phone, and they won three more games before Doncic actually played. They beat the Celtics by 21 points. James and Austin Reaves were symbiotic, and Davis was profiting from the grunt work provided by Jarred Vanderbilt and Dorian Finney-Smith. Dalton Knecht, who was buried so far underneath the Chrypto.com Arena floorboards that Anze Kopitar hip-checked him, was coming off the bench with long-range shots.. Jaxson Hayes was fulfilling his role as a backup center. In the game before Doncic was activated, Reaves dropped 45 points on Indiana in a 7-point win. And James’ minutes were stable, in the mid-30s. During those golden weeks, the Lakers began a streak of nine consecutive games of 50 percent shooting or better.

After the trade the Lakers were 19-13 and finished 50-32. That included a 26-point punchout at Oklahoma City. When James and Doncic were together, the Lakers were 15-8. But Hayes was their de facto big man, with help from Vanderbilt. Over 309 career games, Vanderbilt averages 6.2 rebounds in 20 minutes. He got seven in 20 minutes Wednesday.

But Hayes never got off the bench, and the compact lineup, which coach JJ Redick thought gave the Lakers a chance in Game 4, wound up producing a Rudy Gobert highlight reel. The 4-time Defensive Player of the Year, often a cipher offensively, went 12 for 15 and scored 27 points with 24 rebounds. On a night when Minnesota was missing 40 of 47 three-point shots and Anthony Edwards was missing all 11, that was quite enough, and Julius Randle also thrived in the Lakers’ vacuum by scoring 11 in the fourth quarter and 23 overall.

So the trade gets an “incomplete,” at best. A Dallas lineup with Davis joining big men Dereck Lively and Daniel Gafford, and with Irving, Klay Thompson and P.J. Washington outside is still intriguing. It would have the defensive length that Harrison and coach Jason Kidd were seeking. And the Lakers didn’t get Doncic just for the spring of 2025 or even 2026. He is the captain of the post-LeBron ship, a luxury liner that always finds a way to find numbers to retire. Giannis Antetokounmpo, come on down.

But there are realities to face. Doncic was the green light on nearly every Minnesota play. The idea he could guard Randle, or anyone else without major help, was a fantasy. One assumes Pelinka, Redick and James will introduce Doncic to Ozempic, or maybe a Jane Fonda workout tape.

The Lakers probably can get a rim protector somewhere, and their fans will always wonder if they really should have backed out of the trade that would have brought them Mark Williams from Charlotte.

But mostly they need to hope Redick breathes deeply and learns from the first coaching gig he’s ever had in his life. His regular season was good, but you can’t tell a team to keep its playoff cool when you’re losing yours. Redick’s decisions were erratic and his behavior, at least before Game 5, was so jittery that even the TNT announcers mentioned it. Rightsholders are usually protective of the talent, but Redick apparently was uptight when he met the TNT crew, and he bolted his pre-game press conference when he didn’t like a question about consulting his coaching staff, which includes head-coaching veterans Nate McMillan and Scott Brooks.

On Wednesday Redick suddenly called upon Maxi Kleber, who came from Dallas with Doncic but hadn’t played since January, to mix it up with Gobert and Randle underneath. That’s not Kleber’s game, and he was wasting minutes that could have gone to Vanderbilt or Hayes. For the series, Doncic averaged 41.6 minutes, James 40.7 and Reaves 39.3. Reaves shot only 31.9 percent from 3-point land during the series. Being the backup bass guitarist requires heavy adjustment; ask third options Chris Bosh or Kevin Love, who still managed to help James win championships.

Mainly the Lakers were mismatched in the front office. Tim Connelly, who brought Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray and eventually a championship to Denver, is now running the Timberwolves. He shipped Karl-Anthony Towns and his gaudy numbers to New York. He got Randle and Donte DiVincenzo back. At the time, a prescient scout said the Timberwolves had lost talent but gained toughness. It took a season for Minnesota to endure the injuries and adjustments, but it was healthy at the end, and went 17-4 after March 1. Chris Finch, the coach, mapped out an 8-man rotation and stuck with it, and only three Timberwolves played more than 30 minutes a game. Jaden McDaniels romped through the lane to average 17.4 points in the series, and Naz Reid shot 50 percent from 3-point.

To have the ever-dynamic Edwards is comforting. To know you can eliminate a team on a night when Edwards is bricking it up is empowering.

James was noncommittal about 2025-26 but he and Doncic will likely be playing, for a combined $109 million. In four of the five years since they won the 2020 title, the Lakers failed to win a playoff series. With their schedules cleared, maybe Pelinka, Harrison, Doncic and James can cook up some tri-tips and watch “Celtics City” episodes, or maybe a possible Cleveland-Oklahoma City NBA Finals, to see how team-building is done. It helps when players outnumber legends.