By Jamal Baker
NDG Sportswriter
I’m sure you all have heard the news by now—that the Dallas Mavericks agreed to trade 10-time All-Star Anthony Davis to the Washington Wizards in an eight-player swap.
Dallas sent Davis, Jaden Hardy, D’Angelo Russell and Dante Exum to the Wizards in exchange for Khris Middleton, AJ Johnson, Malaki Branham, Marvin Bagley III, two first-round draft picks and three second rounders.
The first-round picks in the deal are the Thunder’s 2026 selection and the Warriors’ top-20-protected pick in 2030.
What this deal indicates is that the Mavericks have officially moved on from the Luka Doncic trade that sent shockwaves throughout the sports world last year.
“I’ll tell you one thing, I think Mavs fans are happy with this,” Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki said on Saturday. “I think they didn’t want to be reminded of what happened a year ago in the Luka trade. So to me, looking at this deal at first glance there’s not a lot that came back, picks or player-wise. This is all really about financial flexibility for the future.”
With Davis’s massive contract now off the books, Dallas can now focus on building around rookie phenom Cooper Flagg.
However, it’s bittersweet to think about what could have been with the potential of a healthy trio of Davis, Flagg, and Kyrie Irving, who never had the opportunity to share the floor together.
“I’m a little disappointed, I think when AD actually played with Cooper, they played off each other really, really well,” Nowitzki admitted. “But we’ll never know. What this ultimately is now is build around Cooper, go young. See what the next year brings with the draft this summer. Ultimately now, they’re all in on Cooper Flagg and his future.”
The tables have turned quickly for Flagg. Once expecting to be surrounded by a trio of future Hall of Famers when he entered the league, the former Duke Blue Devil is now embracing the responsibility of being handed the keys to the organization.
“It’s been different than what I expected,” Flagg said. “Just doing the best I can. It was tough at first. Obviously, that much losing. … It still is. I’m a competitor, but I think for me, it’s about learning from the losses as much as I can and trying to take positives away.”
Dallas sits at 19-33 on the season and is currently in the midst of a seven-game losing streak. However, their record doesn’t indicate how competitive they’ve been throughout the season. With a points differential of only -3.0 points and leading the NBA with 34 clutch games, head coach Jason Kidd deserves credit for motivating his players to compete night in and night out.
“Honestly, it doesn’t really change much,” Flagg said. “I’m just gonna go out there every night and try to be consistent and try to be the best version of myself. Whatever that looks like, whoever is out there with me, I hope we just compete at a very high level.”
Flagg is averaging 20.2 points, 6.6 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.2 steals this season and is the current favorite to win NBA Rookie of the Year according to FanDuel.
The basketball gods smiled upon the Mavericks organization by gifting them another franchise player in Flagg, let’s pray the front office does their job and builds a championship roster around him.
