In one of the most important and spotlighted games of the Golden State Warriors' season, last week they took on the Los Angeles Lakers in L.A. with playoff survival on the line. In addition to their longtime rival LeBron James, it was the Warriors' chance to prove themselves against new Laker Luka Doncic.
They did just that, pulling out a key 123-116 victory to stay alive in the insanely competitive Western Conference playoff race. And in one of the key plays of the night, Draymond Green rotated over and blocked Luka Doncic to preserve a six-point lead with less than a minute to go, essentially sealing the win.
The Warriors have had their fair share of battles with Doncic, including a hardfought series in the Western Conference Finals in 2022 en route to their most recent championship. Stopping Doncic was the centerpiece of their gameplan, and Andrew Wiggins rose to the moment in the best stretch of defensive basketball he has ever played.
What if, like Kevin Durant before him, Luka Doncic had lost to the Warriors in the West Finals and then soon thereafter joined them? What if instead of teaming up with LeBron James against Steph Curry, Doncic had joined him and created one of the greatest backcourts of all time?
That's the question posed by ESPN's Bobby Marks -- not only for the Warriors, but for every team in the league. What if the most shocking trade in NBA history was not a midnight secret but a public bidding war? What if every team in the NBA had been able to submit an offer for Doncic?
Let's look at the trade put together by Marks -- to be clear, this is a "What If" moment of the past, if the Warriors had traded for Doncic in February instead of trading for Jimmy Butler, not if they traded for Doncic with the Lakers. Let's unpack the specific and see if the deal would have been worth it for the Dubs.
Laying out the Trade
The Warriors had a robust package available to offer for a star -- be that Jimmy Butler, Kevin Durant or Luka Doncic. Butler's value was low enough that they were able to retain most of their key assets in pulling off that deal -- including keeping Jonathan Kuminga and Brandin Podziemski. With Doncic, in an open-bidding situation, that would not be the case.
To match the salary of Doncic the Warriors need to include Andrew Wiggins, but in ontrast to the Butler deal players like Dennis Schroder and Kyle Anderson are retained while Kuminga and Podziemski are added in. Gary Payton II gets the deal to the right level. Marks then adds in three firsts and a swap. Here is the deal in full:
The Mavericks get two young players in Kuminda and Podziemski who can help them win now but also have room to grow. Wiggins already is proven to fit in perfectly next to Klay Thompson on the wing and could take the defensive assignments Kyrie Irving and Klay would not want. It's also a lot of draft capital to add in, certainly much more than the Mavericks got from the Lakers.
The flip side is that there is no surefire star here, which seemed to be important to Dallas in targeting Anthony Davis in the original deal. They could use the picks and potentially Kuminga or Podziemski as the centerpiece of a trade for another star, but why not just trade Doncic for that star?
It's a completely fair offer, but probably not the best on the table for Dallas. From the Warriors side, was this deal worth making?
Grade the Trade for the Warriors?
It can be difficult to transport back in time to February to see if this trade would have been worth it for the Warriors, especially since they have been so successful since adding Jimmy Butler. Would they have gone on a similar run with Doncic in the lineup? Would this have been selling low on Podziemski, who has level up over the past two months?
The cost is exorbitant, but that's the price you pay for a Top-5 player in the league full in his prime. The Phoenix Suns traded this level of draft capital and two key players to land a much older Kevin Durant. The Cleveland Cavaliers traded a future All-Star, a lottery pick and five full drafts for Donovan Mitchell, who is great but not on the level of Doncic. A deal for a player like this is truly unprecedented.
The primary issue is that in trading Wiggins, Payton and Kuminga and not getting back Butler, their defensive structure would have been quite compromised. Would a lineup of Doncic, Curry, Moody, Draymond Green and a center have been ready to rock? Or are they too vulnerable defensively?
Perhaps it would not have mattered, as the offensive pairing of Curry and Doncic may have been all-time great. Is there a more potent backcourt pairing in the history of the NBA?
Curry has proven to still be a Top-10 player in the league and his game lends itself to sustaining for multiple more seasons. That may be enough of a window for the Warriors to put a title-winning team around those two stars. It's not unreasonable to think that Curry plus Doncic plus Draymond plus Steve Kerr could win a title in the next few years.
Then, as Curry does finally pass the torch, Doncic is set up in one of the league's best organizations to be the centerpiece of the next decade. Joe Lacob finally gets his two timelines. Mike Dunleavy Jr. will have limited resources to build a roster to sustain around Doncic, but it's a much better starting place than building around a borderline All-Star like Podziemski seems likely to become.
Butler has been incredible for the Warriors, but he is also a ticking time bomb of sorts, and at 35 yeas old his runway is short. Doncic would be more expensive but is also a better player now, and certainly three and six and nine years from now. If this deal had been on the table, it's one the Warriors should have made.
"What If" is such a fascinating question, and here we see a very different future that was never on the table. The fortunes of many teams changed on that night when this trade appeared out of nowhere. Luka Doncic is now on one of the Warriors' chief rivals. But perhaps, in an alternate universe, he would be wearing gold and blue instead of gold and purple.