There had never been a trade like it in NBA history.

A perennial MVP candidate being blindsided and sent away midseason? In the season after carrying his franchise to the NBA Finals? As he’s approaching his prime?

One year later, the deal that sent Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers is still a stunner. And people around the league are still scratching their heads about the Dallas Mavericks getting what’s widely perceived as a pennies-on-the-dollar return, with all due respect to 10-time All-Star Anthony Davis.

“I’ve never seen a transaction that caused so much collective shock and confusion around the league,” a prominent agent, who didn’t have a client involved in the deal, recently told ESPN.

Our NBA insiders tackle four of the biggest questions facing the Lakers, Mavericks and the rest of the league on the one-year anniversary of one of the NBA’s most stunning deals.

Are the Lakers any closer to a title one year after the trade?

Hours before the trade went down last season, a Lakers’ win over the New York Knicks on Feb. 1 lifted their record to 28-19. This season, they came into New York on Feb. 1 with a nearly identical 29-18 record.

Does that mean the trade was a wash? Well, of course not.

The similar records have more to do with Doncic, LeBron James and Austin Reaves playing only eight games together this season because of injuries.

If there hadn’t been a trade, and Davis’ body suffered the same string of injuries over the past year — he has played 29 games total as a Maverick, while Doncic has played in 67 for the Lakers over two seasons — Los Angeles’ struggles this season could have been far more pronounced than they’ve been thus far.

It’s hard to see the Lakers as a contender — even with Doncic leading the league in scoring with 33.7 points per game — unless they can dramatically improve upon their 25th-ranked defensive rating.

That isn’t to say the Lakers can’t improve upon their spot in the West — they sit in fifth as Doncic, James and Reaves have returned to the court again. It isn’t suggesting that they won’t be a tough out in the playoffs, either, with those three calling the shots.

But, the only way this team gets significantly closer to a title this season is if it can pull off another early February trade ahead of Thursday’s deadline to address its 3-and-D deficiencies. — Dave McMenamin

How do the Mavericks move on from the short-lived AD era?

The “AD era” never really started in Dallas.

The second half of last season was an extended mourning period for Mavs fans. It took a remarkable stroke of lottery luck to resuscitate any hope for enthusiastic support from the morose fan base.

As soon as the Mavs cashed in those 1.8% odds to win the No. 1 pick, it was clear that Cooper Flagg — not Davis — would be the franchise’s priority for the foreseeable future. Then the early-season firing of general manager Nico Harrison eliminated any doubt about the direction of the franchise.

In that sense, the Mavericks have moved on. Every personnel decision from this point will be viewed through the prism of maximizing the Mavericks’ potential to build around their teenage prodigy and his future.

That’s why the Mavs have spent the past few months exploring the trade market for the 32-year-old Davis, who clearly doesn’t fit the franchise’s long-term outlook.

Dallas — and specifically governor Patrick Dumont, who makes the franchise’s final decisions — needs to determine the threshold for pulling the lever on a Davis trade.

The ideal return in a Davis deal includes first-round draft compensation, young talent and financial relief in the form of expiring contracts. But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen before the deadline as Davis recovers from yet another injury — ligament damage in his left hand is expected to sideline him until at least late this month.

There are some within the organization who would be in favor of trading Davis even if the return is only expiring contracts, simply because they value the flexibility it would give the franchise as it builds around Flagg.

That idea would be hard to sell to Dumont, who feels no pressure to trade Davis now, sources told ESPN. — Tim MacMahon

How has the trade affected this year’s deadline?

To start, the architect of the trade, Mavericks GM Harrison, was fired in November.

The Mavericks under Harrison acquired Kyrie Irving, Daniel Gafford, PJ Washington and Davis over three consecutive deadlines.

With Harrison no longer in charge, the “win now” time frame — centered on Irving and Davis — is replaced with a focus on retooling the roster around Flagg and a potential lottery pick in June’s draft.

A decision on Davis’ future probably will wait until the offseason but that doesn’t rule out the Mavericks exploring options to reduce payroll in the future and opening a roster spot to convert two-way player Ryan Nembhard.

play

Windhorst: Mavs fired Nico Harrison to ‘save their brand’

Brian Windhorst explains the reactions and reasoning to the decision to dismiss GM Nico Harrison.

As for the Lakers, the Doncic trade has them operating on two timelines at the deadline.

The current timeline is adding to a roster with Doncic, James and Reaves while focusing on financial flexibility in future years. The Lakers have over $40 million of expiring contracts consisting of Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent and Maxi Kleber. They also have a 2031 or 2032 first-round pick to trade if needed. The future timeline is building a roster around Doncic and Reaves.

With Doncic under contract for the next three seasons, the Lakers could have up to $50 million in cap space this offseason and nearly double that amount in 2027.

They will also have three first-rounders (2026, 2031 and 2033) available to trade starting the night of the draft. — Bobby Marks

What are league insiders saying one year later?

The consistent theme I get back from people around the NBA whenever the trade comes up is the ongoing amazement that it happened — as well as how Dallas might dig its way out of the aftermath.

Harrison was fired as a result of the deal and the fallout from it, but Davis’ future is an ongoing talking point — his value is nowhere near what it was perceived to be when Harrison made him the centerpiece of the deal.

Fortunately for the Mavericks, they did get lucky to land Flagg in last year’s draft. Without Flagg, the franchise would be a desolate wasteland in a consistently competitive Western Conference.

At several points over the past few months, sources have reiterated to ESPN some variation of, “Can you imagine where Dallas would be if it hadn’t won the lottery?”

On the other side of the deal, the Lakers continue to be a work in progress. The irony of the Doncic trade is that over the couple of years preceding it, Dallas had done an excellent job surrounding him with exactly the sort of talent required to maximize his skills: a pair of rim-running, shot-blocking centers; 3-and-D guards and forwards to play defense and hit 3s around him; and another high-level shot creator to take pressure off him when he’s on the court while running the team when he’s not.

Los Angeles has the last part in Reaves (if he’s retained as a free agent this summer), but they are essentially starting from scratch on the rest of it.

And while they are the Lakers, and they’ll have cap space to build this team around Doncic, putting together a championship-level team in the West is a lot easier said than done. — Tim Bontemps

Former UCLA standout Amari Bailey said he is attempting to become the first basketball player to return to college after playing in NBA games.

Bailey, 21, has hired an agent and a lawyer to prepare to fight for NCAA eligibility with hopes to join a college team and play one more season.

He said he started to explore a return to college earnestly in 2025 but has wondered whether there was a way back to the NCAA since the day he was drafted in 2023. He said he made some mistakes as an 18-year-old freshman and left UCLA with “a lot to prove left on the table.”

“Right now I’d be a senior in college,” Bailey told ESPN. “I’m not trying to be 27 years old playing college athletics. No shade to the guys that do; that’s their journey. But I went to go play professionally and learned a lot, went through a lot. So, like, why not me?”

The 6-foot-3 guard played one season at UCLA in 2022-23 before entering the 2023 NBA draft, where he was selected by the Charlotte Hornets in the second round. He played in 10 games for the Hornets during his rookie season on a two-way contract and spent two years in the G League before being cut over the summer.

His effort will be another substantial legal test for the NCAA’s ability to enforce rules that decide who can play college sports during an era when waivers and lawsuits have steadily eroded a ban on professional players joining NCAA rosters.

NCAA president Charlie Baker said in December that the association would not grant eligibility to any player who has signed an NBA contract. However, Alabama forward Charles Bediako — who also played in the G League on a two-way NBA contract — tested the NCAA’s rules in state court and won an injunction that has allowed him to play for the Crimson Tide in recent games.

“The NCAA has not and will not grant eligibility to any players who have signed an NBA contract,” NCAA senior vice president of external affairs Tim Buckley said when asked about Bailey’s plan to return. “Congress can strengthen NCAA rules so professional athletes cannot sue their way back to competing against college students.”

Bediako argued in court documents that the NCAA has been “selective and inconsistent” in enforcing its eligibility rules. His lawyers cited a recent NCAA decision to allow James Nnaji, a 2023 NBA draft pick who played professionally in Europe rather than signing with an NBA team, to suit up for Baylor.

Bailey was selected 10 picks after Nnaji in the same draft and signed the same type of contract as Bediako. Bailey told ESPN that playing a few minutes in a small number of NBA games late in his rookie season isn’t a good reason to treat him differently than those players.

“You’ve got a college-aged kid who wants to go to college, and you’ve got a system that says, ‘Too bad, you’ve gone to a different league so you’re out forever,'” said Elliot Abrams, Bailey’s attorney. “I don’t see any real justification for it.”

Abrams helped former North Carolina football player Tez Walker restore his NCAA eligibility in a pivotal 2023 decision and said he has since worked with numerous other college athletes to help navigate the waiver process. NCAA rules allow athletes to play four full seasons during a five-year period that starts when they first enroll in college. Bailey would have one year remaining in that five-year window for the 2026-27 season.

The NCAA, which is fighting to overturn the Bediako court decision, prohibits anyone who has signed a professional contract from playing college sports unless the money they are making from their pro team covers only “actual and necessary expenses,” such as food, rent, health care and training costs associated with playing their sport.

“It’s not a stunt. I’m really serious about going back. I just want to improve my game, change the perception of me and just show that I can win.”

Amari Bailey

NCAA members adopted the “actual and necessary expenses” exception in 2010 as schools began increasingly recruiting players from overseas. The new rule required the NCAA to handle players on a case-by-case basis, and schools have steadily pushed the waiver limits, from teenage European league players to older, higher-paid players in those leagues and then to the G League. The issue has become more pronounced in the past couple of years as schools started paying players directly and the money athletes can make in the NCAA has started to outpace what they can earn in professional leagues.

The association initially changed the rules to accommodate a European system that places young players who make only enough to cover their living expenses alongside highly paid professionals within the same club.

Baker said in a statement earlier this month that these lawsuits ultimately take away opportunities from high school players, and veteran coaches have loudly opposed the lack of a clear standard for fear that it will lead to an unfettered two-way street between the NBA and college.

“A judge ordering the NCAA to let a former NBA player take the court Saturday against actual college student-athletes is exactly why Congress must step in and empower college sports to enforce our eligibility rules,” Baker said shortly after Bediako was granted a chance to play for Alabama.

Bailey said he thinks most college basketball prospects want to compete for spots with the best players in their age group regardless of where they have played in the past. He also said that he thinks the five-year limit is fair but that perhaps it would be more realistic to prohibit players who signed a full NBA contract or first-round draft picks.

Bailey’s only professional contract was worth $565,000, he said. He argues that many starters for top-level college teams are making similar amounts of money, if not more.

He said he has been training twice per day at home in Southern California and plans to begin speaking with schools in the near future about joining their roster for next season. He said he doesn’t have a specific team in mind but is looking for a place where he can prove that he can be a leader, run an offense at point guard and carry a team to the Final Four.

“It’s not a stunt,” Bailey said. “I’m really serious about going back. I just want to improve my game, change the perception of me and just show that I can win.”

His new team would have to petition the NCAA for a waiver to allow him to play. If the NCAA denies the waiver request, Bailey and his attorney could file a lawsuit in state or federal court to challenge the decision.

Bailey, who appeared in a reality television show about basketball moms in his early teens before moving to Los Angeles to play on the same high school team as Bronny James and other future NBA players, said he was not concerned about the criticism he might receive for his push to go back to school.

“I feel like I’ve dealt with a lot, and this wouldn’t be anything different,” he said.