In recent years, the NBA trade deadline has seen superstars swap teams midseason. The New York Knicks traded for Carmelo Anthony in 2011, James Harden joined the Philadelphia 76ers in 2022, and Kevin Durant created a new Phoenix Suns super-team in 2023. However, these trades are nothing in comparison to what went down in the early morning hours of Feb. 2, 2025.

Luka Dončić—the 5-time All-Star, 5-time All-NBA First Team member, and former EuroLeague MVP (which he achieved at age 17)—was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers to team up with LeBron James, arguably the greatest player the game has ever seen. In return, the Mavericks acquired 10-time All-Star Anthony Davis, who famously joined James on the Lakers in 2019 and brought championship no. 17 to the Purple and Gold in the 2019–20 season.

Completing the trade, Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris went to the Lakers, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round draft pick went to the Mavericks, and Jalen Hood-Schifino and the Los Angeles Clippers’ 2025 second-round pick went to the third team involved: the Utah Jazz.

This is nothing short of crazy. Just last season, Dončić led the Mavs to their first NBA Finals appearance in 13 years. He has been Dirk Nowitzki’s de facto successor in Dallas since he entered the league in 2018, and he has played that role successfully. While he did not get off to the fastest start this season, battling multiple injuries, there was seemingly no rift between him and the Mavericks’ front office. However, new general manager Nico Harrison and the Mavericks’ new majority ownership thought otherwise, citing concerns about Dončić’s weight and Harrison’s strong relationship with Anthony Davis as explanations for the trade.

Better yet, Luka is widely considered a top 10, if not top 5, player in the league. His ability to impact all facets of the game is nearly impossible to match. Players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Dončić represent the next generation of stars who will become the faces of the league once James Durant and Stephen Curry have retired. However, many assumed Dončić would represent the league as a Maverick, not a Laker.

The implications for the Los Angeles Lakers are massive, and the trade sets them up quite well for the future. They will now pair Dončić with LeBron, who has come out publicly praising Luka’s style of play. With Luka getting to learn with quite possibly the original model of the player he’s become, the Lakers have created a dynamic duo that, on paper, is untouchable. When you surround this duo with wings like Luka’s former teammate Dorian Finney-Smith, Austin Reaves, and Rui Hachimura, it enables LA to keep up offensively with anyone.

The trade’s biggest hole was depth at center and power forward, which the Lakers assuaged by acquiring Mark Williams from the Charlotte Hornets, who slides into their rotation beautifully. In a nutshell, the trade secures the Lakers’ spot in the title conversation—as LeBron chases his fifth ring—and it gives them a young core that head coach J.J. Redick can work with in the future.

Between Dončić, Reaves, Hachimura, and now Williams, LA has strong pieces to build around, and with Luka as the centerpiece, ideally for the next decade or more, the Lakers will remain in the playoff picture for years to come. With Dončić likely hitting his prime within the next few years, the Lakers have set themselves up masterfully for the next generation, even once King James hangs it up.

While on paper the Mavericks still may look like a contending team, this trade sets back their future prospects significantly. Adding Anthony Davis to a lineup with Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson would have made them a clear title contender seven years ago, but the same cannot be said for the three in 2025. The current Mavs roster is reminiscent of the 1996–98 Houston Rockets, who paired franchise cornerstone Hakeem Olajuwon with aging stars Clyde Drexler and Charles Barkley. Again, while the team was a title favorite in 1991, it fell short of expectations; Houston failed to achieve any legitimate success with the trio.

Davis is still a top-three big man in the league, but his fit into the Mavericks’ system right now doesn’t seem ideal. Historically, Irving has not played alongside a big man at Davis’s level. He has primarily been the first option or supported a forward like James or Kevin Durant. That will be an adjustment for Irving, who had just settled into his role as an offensive weapon in a guard-centric scheme.

The same can be said for Thompson. However, he’s now a shell of his former self, relegated to more of a 3-and-D option rather than a beyond-the-arc threat with impressive slashing ability. Adding Davis also may stunt the growth of Dallas’s big man duo of Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II, who were the primary lob threats for Dončić and Irving on their championship run last season.

Ultimately, the Mavericks’ roster aged significantly with this trade, with the majority of their talent coming from players over 30. They still have a chance to compete in the playoffs for the next few years, but without the clutch factor of Dončić in the postseason, teams will be less afraid when facing Dallas in a seven-game series.

Most importantly, even considering the implications for both the Lakers and Mavs, this trade works out best for the league as a whole. The official trade deadline was at 3 p.m. this Thursday, Feb. 6, when a litany of wild trades involving former All-Stars and All-Star-caliber players took place. De’Aaron Fox was traded to the San Antonio Spurs, Zach LaVine to the Sacramento Kings, Khris Middleton to the Washington Wizards, Kyle Kuzma to the Milwaukee Bucks, Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors, Andrew Wiggins to the Miami Heat, and Brandon Ingram to the Toronto Raptors. That’s a lot of big names switching teams at the deadline, and yet the Dončić/Davis trade was the biggest story in the league.

In an NBA season that has garnered historically low ratings, these trades will certainly help increase interest in the league. The league’s viewership is down 19% from last year, and one of its most popular early-season ploys to increase its ratings—the stacked Christmas Day slate—proved fruitless as the NFL and Netflix stole the spotlight. The league needs something to boost its ratings, and an incredibly eventful trade deadline featuring one of the league’s brightest stars might be exactly what is needed.

Think about it: If you’re a sports fan right now, all the dialogue on ESPN and other news networks surrounds the NBA. Are the Lakers the new favorites to win a championship? Will Butler and Stephen Curry mesh well? Does Fox make the Spurs a contender? What is the state of former Mavericks’ majority owner Mark Cuban’s family after he said a couple of years ago that he would sacrifice his marriage to keep Dončić on the Mavs? 

Sports pundits have pondered all of these questions over the last week, which is impressive considering that this Sunday, Feb. 9 the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles will play in Super Bowl LIX. It’s the most watched sporting event almost every year in the United States, and yet no one wants to talk about Kansas City going for the first ever NFL three-peat or Philadelphia seeking revenge from two years ago. Everyone wants to talk about the NBA.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver must be psyched about what took place over the last week in basketball, and that everyone seems to have an opinion. Even during the NFL’s biggest week, somehow basketball is top of mind. Does it mean that people won’t tune into the Super Bowl? No, that’s impossible. But it does mean that people will want to tune into the NBA more than ever, as the new look of the league promises fireworks for the second half of the season.

After the All-Star Break next week, don’t be surprised when the NBA’s ratings skyrocket, as fans are fascinated by how these changed teams will play and who will emerge victorious by early June.

Yes, the Lakers—and for what it’s worth, the Mavericks—both have things to smile about when looking back on this year’s NBA trade deadline. But the biggest winner of all is the league itself. 

Max Forstein can be reached at mforstein@wesleyan.edu.