{"id":123290,"date":"2025-02-11T15:06:32","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T20:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=123290"},"modified":"2025-02-11T15:07:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T20:07:38","slug":"mavs-giannis-antetokoumpo-anthony-edwards-luka-doncic-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/11\/mavs-giannis-antetokoumpo-anthony-edwards-luka-doncic-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Mavs Target Giannis, Anthony Edwards In Luka Trade?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers were the lucky team that ended up with Luka Doncic<\/a> by last Thursday’s trade deadline. However, the Dallas Mavericks had other potential suitors on their mind before striking up their deal for Anthony Davis<\/a>. According to NBA insider Gery Woelfel, Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison “reached out to<\/a>” the Milwaukee Bucks and Minnesota Timberwolves as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mavs reached out to the Bucks,” he reports on Woelfel’s Press Box. “But the Bucks made it clear to Mavs they wouldn\u2019t trade (Giannis) Antetokounmpo even though his future with the team is murky.<\/p>\n

As for the Timberwolves, it\u2019s only logical that any potential deal between the Mavs and Timberwolves would have included Anthony Edwards, their ascending 23-year-old superstar.”<\/p>\n

Mavs Targeted Giannis Antetokounmpo In Luka Doncic Trade<\/h2>\n

Considering what Harrison has said about defense and the (former) Lakers player they targeted, Bucks face of the franchise Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a> was obviously the player that Dallas desired in a trade with Milwaukee. The probability of that is even higher when considering the speculation still<\/em> surrounding Antetokounmpo’s future with the organization<\/a>. Add to that the reality that trading one face of a franchise for another, Antetokounmpo for Doncic, seems like more of a 1:1 trade than the other possibilities.<\/p>\n

If so, it’s hard to argue that it wouldn’t have been a good trade for the Mavericks. As talented as Doncic is, Antetokounmpo is right there with him as a perennial MVP candidate. In fact, he’s already won an NBA MVP award, twice. He’s also won an NBA Finals MVP award, another accomplishment Doncic has yet to achieve. He’s even won a Defensive Player of the Year award, a milestone that Doncic is unlikely to reach.<\/p>\n

These days, he isn’t as durable as he was in the early stages of his career. Nonetheless, he’s never played fewer than 61 games in any season.<\/p>\n

These facts alone are why the Bucks wouldn’t have been jumping to trade Antetokounmpo, even if Doncic was the prize. However, there’s also the reality that Doncic –and true point guard –might be even more ball-dominant than Antetokounmpo. As a result, he and Damian Lillard<\/a> might not have been an optimal duo offensively. At the defensive end, the pairing is also risky, especially as Antetokounmpo has been so essential to their success at that end.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it’s probably a deal Milwaukee would’ve accepted only if Antetokounmpo officially requested a trade. If so, the hope is that a Doncic-Lillard backcourt would have resembled that of Doncic and Kyrie Irving<\/a>. Doncic will never match up to Antetokounmpo defensively but could have been hid on less active and athletic players.<\/p>\n

Anthony Edwards, Too<\/h3>\n

It’s not hard to figure out who Dallas would’ve targeted in a trade with the Timberwolves. For all of his flaws, Rudy Gobert<\/a> is arguably still Minnesota’s best defensive player. Yet, he hasn’t played well enough these past couple of seasons to believe the Mavs would want him.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, they should’ve<\/em> been ambitious enough to push for Anthony Edwards<\/a>\u00a0with Doncic was the bait.<\/p>\n

Timberwolves president Tim Connelly is known to be a fan of Doncic. Indeed, he tried to trade for him<\/a> when he was the head of the Denver Nuggets’ front office. Swapping Edwards for Doncic would’ve definitely given Minnesota a better facilitator, as Edwards is often more concerned with calling his own number. To that point, ball-movement has been one of the Wolves’ Achilles heels this season. It also would’ve opened up minutes for Donte DiVincenzo<\/a> and Nickeil Alexander-Walker<\/a> at the 2<\/em>, the position that they’re best at.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Dallas would’ve landed an MVP candidate who’s even younger than Doncic at 23. A player who’s more efficient from beyond arc. Even more importantly, one that’s a much better on-ball defender. Factoring in Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont’s controversial comments about work ethic<\/a>, Edwards also possesses the intangibles that they’re looking for as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers were the lucky team that ended up with Luka Doncic by last Thursday’s trade deadline. However, the Dallas Mavericks had other potential suitors on their mind before striking up their deal for Anthony Davis. According to NBA insider Gery Woelfel, Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison “reached out to” the Milwaukee Bucks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":123330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,4,26,15,21,62,4721],"tags":[240,2109,306,1133,4774],"class_list":["post-123290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mavericks","category-hawks","category-lakers","category-bucks","category-timberwolves","category-nba","category-trade-rumors","tag-anthony-davis","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-luka-doncic","tag-rumors"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123290"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123334,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123290\/revisions\/123334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}