Shams Charania Reveals Wild Details of How Lakers Trade For Luka Doncic Went Down

The Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks stunned the NBA world when Dallas traded five-time All-NBA First Team point guard Luka Doncic, plus big men Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris, to L.A. in exchange for aging All-Star center/power forward Anthony Davis, 3-and-D wing Max Christie, and a 2029 first-round draft pick.

Both clubs shipped out 2025 second-rounders to the Utah Jazz. Los Angeles also flipped second-year guard Jalen Hood-Schifino to Utah. He was promptly released.

ESPN's Shams Charania recently unpacked how the announcement of the deal happened, during a new episode of The Young Man And The Three podcast.

“My hands were shaking” — @ShamsCharania goes in detail on how the Luka-AD trade came about with @KOT4Q, Cam Johnson & @talter. 🚨 NEW YM3 TOMORROW 🚨 pic.twitter.com/riKR26HhXI
— TheYoungManAndTheThree (@OldManAndThree) March 13, 2025

"I was just really preparing for my flight to Bristol the next morning," Charania said. "About 11:05 [p.m.], I got tipped off that there's something going on with the Lakers and Mavericks. And what's funny is, a few days prior, Wednesday, I had heard that the Lakers and Mavs were talking about a trade about a specific player. That player was not involved in the ultimate [Doncic] deal. It was clearly a great smokescreen."

While at a Texas conference, Dallas Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont doubled down on his team's incredibly unpopular decision to ditch Doncic with its controversial trade.

Patrick Dumont reasons to trade Luka Dončić. Thoughts? #MFFL pic.twitter.com/Uvbu8PkKXd
— Luka Updates (@LukaUpdates) March 13, 2025

"Tough decisions are never easy and part of leadership is looking at risk and looking at all the factors of a decision and being willing to act at that time and look to the long-term and not only think about the short-term or how it may be received immediately," Dumont said.

Dallas is currently 33-34 on the year and has a tenuous hold on the Western Conference's No. 10 seed, with All-Stars Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis out hurt.

"To think about the long-term benefits and what you may achieve if given all the right considerations... so this was a decision about the future, if you look at our roster today and who we have, we feel like we positioned ourselves to be incredibly competitive against the best teams in the NBA," Dumont continued.

During a recent conversation with NBA insider Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson, a Mavericks source revealed that Dumont didn't exactly speak for the whole franchise in his Doncic criticisms.

“They really think we are all stupid,” the source informed Robinson in a phone call.

“We watch the games too. It just blows me away that people are actually like this. He averaged 41 minutes a game in the playoffs last season," the Dallas source said. "Played 900 minutes in total. He averaged basically two steals a game. But didn’t play any defense though."

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The 52-30 Mavericks made an impressive postseason run just last season. Doncic and Irving helped guide Dallas back to the NBA Finals for its first appearance on the league's biggest stage since Hall of Fame power forward Dirk Nowitzki led the club to the 2011 championship.

"I understand why Luka was frustrated as he was" during the Finals, the source noted.

Dallas fell to the Boston Celtics in five games.

"Besides having Kyrie, they weren’t going to match up against Boston well. So you make the moves they did in the offseason and try again," the source said. "You get the second-best shooter of all time in Klay to add to the offense to a team that definitely could’ve contended in the West again.”

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