Celtics
Doncic was traded to the Lakers for a package headlined around Anthony Davis.
The Lakers and Mavericks pulled off one of the more stunning trades in sports history late Saturday night, agreeing to a three-team deal centered around Luka Doncic going to Los Angeles and Anthony Davis going to Dallas.
In the vast majority of the early reaction to the deal, most couldn’t believe that the Mavericks gave up on Doncic while the Lakers got another young superstar. Doncic, 25, led Dallas to the NBA Finals just last season and has been widely considered to be a better player than the 31-year-old Davis for at least the last few seasons.
As most analysts praised Los Angeles for making the trade, there were a few that didn’t like it for the Lakers. Paul Pierce was among them. The Celtics icon went on a posting storm on X shortly after the trade, eventually sharing that he didn’t like the move for his former team’s top rival.
“LeBron and Luka I don’t see fitting,” Pierce wrote in one post.
“Both need the ball too much,” Pierce added in another.
“He not the super star La needs doesn’t fit the mold Magic Kobe Shaq LeBron just saying tho bad Move,” Pierce concluded, writing about Doncic.
Offensively, the partnership of Doncic and LeBron James might be the most unique in NBA history. They’re arguably two of the best playmakers for their size (Doncic 6-foot 6, James 6-9) in NBA history, with Doncic averaging 8.3 assists per game over his career while James has averaged 8.1 assists per game in his Lakers tenure. Of course, that’s on top of the duo each averaging over 25 points per game for the vast majority of their careers.
However, to Pierce’s point, both Doncic and James play a heliocentric style of offense, with each often initiating a clear majority of their team’s possessions. Doncic was also the league’s most-used player offensively over the previous five seasons, posting a 36.7 percent usage percentage (the percentage of his team’s possessions that ended with him taking a shot, shooting a free throw, or turning the ball over).
James, meanwhile, hasn’t posted as high of a usage percentage as Doncic in recent years, but he finished top 10 in the stat over the last three years and is 12th this season. He’s also led his team in usage percentage in every season of his career until this year, when he was tied with Davis for a team-high.
As one of Doncic or James will almost certainly have to sacrifice in this trade, neither really take many catch-and-shoot jumpers, either. James averages 3.2 catch-and-shoot field goals per game and Doncic averages 2.4 catch-and-shoot jumpers per game. For reference, those numbers would rank eighth and ninth on the Celtics, respectively.
But the bigger issue for Los Angeles might be on the other end of the court. By trading Davis, the Lakers’ big-man rotation took a severe hit. Their new rotation at center will likely consist of Kleber, Jaxson Hayes, Rui Hachimura, and Jarred Vanderbilt. None of those players offer the defensive prowess and rim protection that Davis (who finished fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting last season) did for a team that already struggles defensively, ranking 21st in defensive rating and 27th in restricted area field goal percentage against.
With no player like Davis on the back line, Doncic will become more vulnerable defensively. The 44.7 percent blow-by rate Doncic has allowed as a primary defender on opponent’s drives over the last two seasons is the highest in the league, per Second Spectrum.
That problem was on full display when the Celtics took down Doncic and the Mavericks in the NBA Finals last season. Doncic allowed a 67.7 percent blow-by rate over the first three games of the series, memorably fouling out in Game 3 as he struggled to keep up with the Celtics’ offense. So, if there is another Boston-Los Angeles Finals in the cards this season, maybe the Celtics can attack Doncic again to a title.
Such a Finals matchup appears unlikely at the moment, though. The Lakers’ title odds jumped after the move, improving to the sixth-best odds (+1700) at DraftKings Sportsbook. With Los Angeles at 28-19, and in fifth place in the Western Conference, a Celtics-Lakers Finals matchup has +2052 odds at DraftKings, an implied probability of less than five percent.
Still, Doncic has been one of the best players in the league over the last five seasons, becoming a perennial MVP candidate. Even though Pierce doesn’t think Doncic fits in the mold of other Lakers icons like Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Magic Johnson, James, and others, what he’s accomplished to this point in his career was similar to what that group of players accomplished before turning 26. And players of Doncic’s caliber rarely become available at that age.
If the Doncic and James partnership doesn’t work out, though, Pierce has an idea in mind to help fix the situation.
“Trade Bron and Bronny back to Cleveland build around Luka is the only way to save the lakers,” Pierce wrote.
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