Report: Lakers 'Never Offered Anthony Davis Ever in a Trade' Before Luka, Mavs Deal

For all of the actual trades and speculative deals involving the Los Angeles Lakers every season, they had never made Anthony Davis available in a deal prior to Saturday night.

Appearing on SportsCenter (starts at 2:25 mark), ESPN's Shams Charania explained the Lakers "never offered Anthony Davis in a trade before, ever" until they received a proposal from the Dallas Mavericks for Luka Dončić.

The Lakers accepted the deal to receive Dončić, Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris from the Mavs for Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round draft pick, per Charania. The Utah Jazz were included in the trade, receiving Jalen Hood-Schifino and two 2025 second-round picks.

There are a lot of reasons why the Lakers never would have made Davis available in a trade prior to this one. The main one being he's arguably a top-10 player in the league right now who is still in his prime, and it would take another superstar of that caliber to even make them think a proposal was worth hearing.

Those types of players don't typically get dealt unless there's a trade request. Recent examples of that include Damian Lillard and Kevin Durant.

Another reason the Lakers may not have wanted to discuss trading Davis is because of LeBron James. They have built a very close friendship on and off the court over the years.

James reportedly wasn't aware any trade was coming before it went down, per ESPN's Dave McMenamin.

With James' career likely to end sooner than later, the Lakers were able to use this opportunity to start long-term reset. They're still going to be competitive this season with James and Dončić playing together. (Dončić is reportedly aiming to return from a calf injury prior to the All-Star break.)

But Dončić, who is only 25, will be the focal point for whatever the Lakers are going to be in the post-James era.

Davis ends his Lakers tenure midway through his sixth season with the organization. He was named to the All-Star team four times (including this season), made the All-NBA team twice and helped them win the 2019-20 NBA Finals.