The Dallas Mavericks yesterday traded their superstar franchise player Luka Doncic, alongside Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris to the LA Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 FRP. This move has been widely considered as a shocking, franchise-alteringly bad move and maybe the worst trade in sports history - but could it actually pan out? This market is my subjective attempt to measure that.
For the purposes of this market, Dallas will be considered to have "won" the trade if any of this happens before the start of the 2030-2031 NBA championship:
The Mavs win an NBA championship with AD as a key member of the team (top 2 in playoffs PPG for his team)
The Mavs reach 60% odds to win the NBA title at any point during the playoffs on Polymarket, even if they eventually don't win (this would be better than Luka did)
AD wins MVP or (DPOY and first team All NBA)
Luka misses out on first team All NBA for 2 consecutive years as a Laker before 2030 (edit: he must spend all season as a laker)
Luka misses >70 games in a 2-season timespan while with the lakers
Luka is traded from the Lakers before the start of the 2030 season
It will resolve NO if:
Lakers win NBA championship with Luka playing a key role
Lakers reach 60% odds to win the NBA title at any point during the playoffs on Polymarket even if they eventually don't win
Luka wins MVP or is 1st team All NBA for 2 consecutive years and reaches at least the conference finals during either year
AD misses substantial time while with the Mavs (>70 games in a 2-season timespan) or is forced to retire
I'll try to be objective but if it's apparent to me that they "won" the trade, or it's consensus among the nba fandom that they did, i'll also resolve yes, even if the criteria don't quite match (e.g if Trump deports Luka). I'm open to modifying/refining these criteria a bit for the first two weeks of the market
Update 2025-02-05 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Tiebreaker Rule Clarification
The outcome is determined by whichever event occurs first.
If Luka makes 2 consecutive All-NBA first teams before Dallas wins an NBA championship, the market resolves NO.
If Dallas wins an NBA championship before Luka achieves that milestone, the market immediately resolves YES.
This rule ensures that if both qualifying events occur, the one happening first takes precedence.
1,000People are also trading
This should resolve NO.
They traded AD for a bag of potato chips and only got like 30 games, 10 of which showed promise and he was bad (for his standards) for 10, and bad (overall) in 10 games.
It doesn’t matter what Luka does
The Mavs win an NBA championship with AD as a key member of the team (top 2 in playoffs PPG for his team) ❌
The Mavs reach 60% odds to win the NBA title at any point during the playoffs on Polymarket, even if they eventually don't win (this would be better than Luka did)❌
AD wins MVP or (DPOY and first team All NBA)❌
Luka misses out on first team All NBA for 2 consecutive years as a Laker before 2030 (edit: he must spend all season as a laker) - Who cares if Luka gets fat and is like 2nd team All-NBA in 2028-29 or something, Lakers easily won the trade regardless
Luka misses >70 games in a 2-season timespan while with the lakers - Doesn’t matter, AD essentially did that in this two season span for the Mavs
Luka is traded from the Lakers before the start of the 2030 season - Again this doesn’t matter since AD was traded in 1 year and played 30 games, if Luka’s traded in 2027-2029, he’d have still played 100s of games and likely return a haul for LA
@ChinmayTheMathGuy I think even Nico would argue for a NO resolution at this point.
It's funny that Luka getting traded again triggers immediate YES, but AD getting traded again...actually helps YES because he can't miss as many games with the Mavs now.
Here's an admittedly weak argument for resolving NO right now:
The criteria are supposed to be a little bit flexible:
I'll try to be objective but if it's apparent to me that they "won" the trade, or it's consensus among the nba fandom that they did, i'll also resolve yes, even if the criteria don't quite match (e.g if Trump deports Luka).
The last NO possibility now cannot technically occur:
AD misses substantial time while with the Mavs (>70 games in a 2-season timespan) or is forced to retire
But AD has been ruled out for the rest of the season due to a sprained finger. So by the end of the season he will have effectively missed 85 Mavs games since the infamous trade.
Bruh lol. I feel like this should definitely mean this resolves no but it’s not in the criteria https://x.com/ShamsCharania/status/2019119800098963674?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
@bens yes, but i've taken some market creator liberties and clarified it's over a full season as a laker so the current season doesn't count.
After 3 games with the Lakers the Fat Mamba is not doing too great
The YES and NO criteria aren't mutually exclusive.
Does it resolve to whichever happens first?
"Luka misses out on first team All NBA for 2 consecutive years as a Laker before 2030"
Does 2025 count since he won't meet the 65 game criteria?
Also Luka could easily make 2 first team all-nba while Lakers don't make it out the 1st round (see Mavs in 2020, 2021, 2023)
criteria isn't that clear. If it's about who won the trade, the current consensus is Lakers 90%, Mavs 10%
If the market is about results, then it might be closer to 70/30 since there's some uncertainty related to what happens after the trade.
For reference I made a market for results
@ChinmayTheMathGuy yes, the tiebreaker is whichever happens first. e.g if Luka makes it to 2 straight All-NBA first teams, but Dallas only wins the title in the third then by the spirit of the market it resolves NO (because Dallas still traded peak Luka). If Dallas wins a title, immediately YES (because whatever else happens in LA, they weren't wrong to trade him etc). Is there any specific set of scenarios that would be confusing?