ESPN Analyst Reveals What It Would Have Taken For The Atlanta Hawks To Have Traded For Luka Doncic

This year's NBA Trade Deadline was one of, if not the craziest in the leagues long history and a lot of it has to do with one trade. In the most shocking trade in NBA and perhaps sports history, the Dallas Mavericks sent Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and a first round pick. Doncic has gone on to have a wonderful start to his Lakers career and has Los Angeles in the mix to win the NBA Finals, while the Mavs have gone the other direction.

The trade was shocking in part because of how under the radar the trade talks went and how secretive both teams kept it. Doncic is at worst a top five player in the NBA and a perennial MVP candidate who would have drawn interest from every single team in the NBA. That does not mean that every team would have had a realistic chance of landing him, but they would certainly have had interest.

So what if the Mavs opened up trade talks and every team could have made an offer? When it comes to the Atlanta Hawks, what would their offer have looked like? ESPN's Bobby Marks explored this possibility and has a very ironic trade offer that Atlanta could have made:

What they could have offered:
Trae Young
Onyeka Okongwu
2025 unprotected first-round pick (via Lakers)
2029 unprotected first-round pick

"There is certainly irony here after Doncic and Young were traded for each other during the 2018 draft. The challenge now comes with selling Doncic on a roster that includes 2024 No. 1 pick Zaccharie Risacher and Defensive Player of the Year candidate Dyson Daniels.

The Hawks do not have control of their first-round pick until 2028, but they are allowed to include the unprotected Lakers first in 2025 and their own in 2029."

As every basketball fan remembers, the Hawks drafted Luka Doncic with the third pick in the 2018 NBA Draft and then traded him to Dallas for Trae Young and a first round pick. If this trade would have happened, this would have changed the league, as would have any Doncic trade.

So where would the Hawks have been if this were a realistic option? Doncic would have paired with defensive player of the year candidate Dyson Daniels in the backcourt and No. 1 pick Zaccharie Risacher for the rest of the season, while the Hawks' emerging star, Jalen Johnson, would have joined the group the following season. It would have been quite a young core to have built around. The questions for Atlanta would have been at center, where they would not have had any available bodies. Due to the injuries to Larry Nance and Clint Capela.

This is a fun hypothetical that was made possible because of the shocking trade that the league will be talking about for years to come.

Additional Links

2025 NBA Mock Draft: Latest Mock Sees Hawks Take Elite Defender, Plus One Of The Draft's Best Shooters

Three Biggest Takeaways From Atlanta's 147-134 Win Over Utah

Atlanta Snaps Three-Game Losing Streak With Big Offensive Performance vs Utah