Weighty trade brings Doncic to L.A.

Dallas trades the 25-year-old All-Pro for 31-year-old Anthony Davis, as seismographs throughout the NBA went crazy.

Luka Doncic

There was nothing wrong with your TV. Luka Doncic was carrying extra cargo. He admitted that he was on the north end of 260 pounds when he got to training camp this year. A little too much post-Olympic R&R, he said, but the same thing happened last year. He has only played 70 games in a season twice, and he hurt his calf on Christmas Day and has only played 22 in this one.

Little did anybody know that Doncic will be wearing a different uniform in his 23rd. He will gather his calves, his bulls, his bison and whatever livestock he has and ride off to Los Angeles, thanks to a spit-out-your-drink trade that came down on Sunday morning in the East, like a Kris Kristofferson chorus.

The Lakers got the 25-year-old Doncic, who at times resembles the best player in the world. They sent Dallas 31-year-old Anthony Davis, who is sitting out with an abdominal strain but who has also fixed his brittle image over the past year-and-a-half.

Thus:

— LeBron Davis has outlasted Davis on the Lakers, after A.D. teamed with James to win the 2020 NBA championship.

— Kyrie Irving has outlasted Doncic on the Mavericks and, on the surface, has required less maintenance.

Only eight months ago Doncic and Irving were being hailed as the best offensive backcourt in NBA history. They took Dallas into the NBA Finals, where the Celtics made sure that the man whom Doncic was guarding got the ball. Young players like Doncic, who turns 26 on Feb. 28, aren’t supposed to have a problem with conditioning, but they’re also not supposed to get hurt this often. Calf injuries are scary because of the proximity to the Achilles tendon. The Angels’ Mike Trout tore a calf muscle last May 17 and didn’t play another inning in 2024. Doncic was recuperating well and getting into the day-to-day range, but the Mavericks knew he was due for a supermax contract this summer (he no longer is) and they thought he was getting old before their eyes. They also had to notice Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Green, Jaren Jackson, Ja Morant, Victor Wembanyama and all the rest of the sonic youth that was invading the Western Conference. On top of everything, center Dereck Lively broke a bone in his ankle and will be out at least until the beginning of the playoffs, which are far from a sure thing for Dallas. The Mavericks came into Saturday’s action with the ninth seed in the West.

“We’ve learned that defense wins championships,” said Nico Harrison, the Mavericks’ general manager, which is another way of saying that poor defenses loses them.

Recently, Davis repeated his preference to play with a legitimate center so he could spread his wings as a power forward. He can do that in Dallas with Daniel Gafford and eventually with Lively. But the Lakers weren’t in position to get him that center, although one assumes they will take a swing at one now. Even at center Davis was averaging 25.8 points and 11.7 rebounds. J.J. Redick had said the Lakers’ offense would more often go through Davis than James, and that was happening.

But the Lakers are also playing quite well without Davis. They blitzed Boston last week and won with no problem at New York Saturday night. It’s crucial to the Laker bloodstream that they have an accepted superstar on hand. It’s also assumed that James will impose some fitness truths on Doncic.

Dallas, meanwhile, can trot out Irving, Davis, Gafford, Klay Thompson and P.J. Washington on any given night, and it doesn’t hurt that coach Jason Kidd was on the Lakers’ staff when Davis and the Lakers won.

The conventional wisdom is that the Mavericks won today and the Lakers won tomorrow, in a league where tomorrow seldom comes. But this trade happened because the Mavericks were willing to gamble that Doncic’s better days are yesterdays.