Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - EMERGENCY POD: Mavs Trade Anthony Davis To Wizards Reaction

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to react to a stunning trade sending Anthony Davis from Dallas to Washington. The guys break down why this is a new approach from the Wizards, why the Mavs are clearing books for Cooper Flagg and talk how this trade is an admission of defeat on the Luka trade.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello, welcome in the Hube Collective. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Wednesday afternoon, a little bit of a, I don't know if it's emergency. I would say reaction.

I don't like emergency. Emergency is that they should be only saved for emergencies like Luca getting traded. Speaking of Luke and getting traded, Anthony Davis, the guy who got traded for him got traded. Joining us from New York City is Tim Bontovs. Oh, everybody. Nice from Dallas, Texas, which was home to Anthony Davis for 29 glorious, glorious. games is Ban McMahon. Howdy, partners. Listen, man, there's more picks involved in this one and there was a Luca trade, so there's much bigger emergency, right? So this is a different situation, but Jared

McCain got traded today from Philadelphia to Oklahoma City. And the pick that Jared McCain went for, which will likely be the Houston Rockets pick, could be better than any pick that the Mavericks got end up getting for Anthony Davis. So maybe I'm wrong, but this was a this was a glorified cash dump. I totally get why the Mavericks did it. Well, they got four draft picks or five draft picks. It can't acknowledge that. It's a fine deal.

Go ahead, McBan. This is your territory. I mean, this is 100% of a salary dump first and foremost. And look, when they started exploring the market for AD, they wanted three things. And you can argue they got all three things in this trade, certainly to varying degrees. But financial relief, which clearly was either the priority or the most attainable of their three goals, some young talent. I mean, I guess we can throw A.J. Johnson and that's at least a flyer on a first round pick who's been traded now twice in his first two seasons.

And then draft compensation. And look, this deal, obviously, there's not a lot of draft compensation. It's going to be OKC's pick in this draft. It's a top 20 protected warriors pick in 2030, so that may or may not be a pick they get. And then there's a few first round picks. This was about just fully washing their books and putting the focus solely on building around Cooper Flagg. A.D. and Cooper Flagg, it didn't fit on the timeline, especially with extension discussions looming. So this was a, you know, this is not a trade to be celebrated.

It obviously looks awful when you tie it to the Luca deal and say a year later, this is what they have to show for it. But this was a sensible decision by the Mavericks because everything they do has to be viewed through the prism of building around the prodigy that they were gifted, not the prodigy that they gave away. Yeah, I mean, that's 100% true. You know, getting all the way out of the tax is obviously a pretty notable thing this year. I didn't think that was going to be really doable at saving the Maver's. works a whole ton of money. They're now a little bit below the salary gap next year, but they're basically at the tax or at the cap next year.

I personally don't think it makes any sense to have Kyrie Irving on the team long term. This gives them the ability now to look at potentially doing something with him this summer and potentially getting some assets for him because I think he could have a lot more value than Anthony Davis because of his skill set and his contract being much lower than AD's. And as we saw, you know, we've seen these 50 million, 45. 50, 55 million contracts, which is very hard to move around. So for the Mavericks to get off that money and to start moving forward to not have the questions about, well, what are we doing with Anthony Davis?

What are we doing about this? Now it's solely about trying to maximize Cooper Flag, maximizing this draft pick this year, getting as high a pick as they can, putting them with Cooper Flag. You have Max Christie, you have some other young talent. You start to move forward. Your books look cleaner. We'll see if they can get off. Daniel Gafford, who was on a longer term deal this week.

We'll see if they can do something with Clay Thompson, signed in the next season, but they get rid of Jaden Hardy, who is not a fit long term. You get rid of DeAngelo Russell, who obviously is not a fit long term. It's a lot of roster spots and stuff that you're cleaning out and moving on from. And now you can just solely look forward and say, as you said, McMahon, what do we do for building around Cooper Flagg, this, you know, prodigy player who's arguably the number one guy to build around in the league, except for the possible exception of Victor Wenbanyama. To me, the real interesting side of this trade, because the Mavs side side,

pretty simple. The real interesting trade is the wizard's side where in the span of a month, they went from having a completely wide open sheet to trading for Trayong, trading for Anthony Davis, presumably extending or having both of them there for a long time,

and buying into both of those guys as core pieces going forward at high numbers. That is a fascinating shift that is going to be really interesting to see what it looks like over the next few seasons. As you know, I'd never wager, but I did, like I'd never make predictions, but I did unusually make one last fall with another member of our staff.

I won't want to name him. We'll just call him Cham's Serenia that Anthony Davis would get traded for less than Kevin Durant got traded for. Would you declare me the winner of that dinner bet? Yes, yes, because there's not going to be a starter. I mean, I guess maybe Middleton might start a game or two. Well, it went for a lottery pick. He got traded for a starter, a bad contract, and a lottery pick. I would say a lottery pick and a starter is better than what the Wizards got in this trade,

even though they didn't. Absolutely. The Navs got, even though the map didn't get a bad contract, obviously. Unfortunate news today that Shagildas Alexander is going to be out for a couple of weeks, minimum with an abdominal strain, which see how many games he misses when it comes to the MVP race. This is a whole other topic we'll talk about later. But they're going to have to replace an international. player in the All-Star game.

Oh, Al-Bi Shangoon. Come on down. Or is it Dylan Brooks? Well, Canadian for Canadian. Dylan Brooks definitely has a case. Probably have Al-Bi. I guess, I would say that they need guards, not centers, but that implies that I care about how they put the team to guard.

We're not talking about All-Star matchups. Who cares? Who cares? Who cares? So I would just say about this trade that what they ended up getting for Luca is a basketball tragedy. The last time I talked about a basketball tragedy, it was when the Nets couldn't put that threesome together. You know, there's a basketball tragedy what they got for Luca, but they got a basketball miracle in Cooper Flagg. So now the Mavericks must tank. When it comes to... Well, must continue losing.

Like, listen, what timing for this trade? Because no one's going to celebrate this trade. The sales pitch for the Mavericks is everything is about building around Cooper Flag. The guy who scored as a 19-year-old, 119 points over the last three games. And, you know, you don't want to root for losing that's tough to do. But the good thing is they're all competitive losses. They've got to get a mid-to-high lottery pick to pair with them. Now they've got flexibility moving forward.

It's not a fun trade. By the way, this isn't what Cooper Flagg thought he was signing up for. He was excited. Oh, I get to compete right away. Well, sorry, buddy. That ain't the way it worked out. But this is about a very clear vision for the future of everything is viewed through the Cooper PRISM. Because there's nothing that they're going to do to win the Luca trade.

That thing was a historic loss. I agree, though, Bontim's, it's interesting the Washington perspective, because basically what the Wizards are doing, like the Jazz. Well, I was going to talk about it before you blasted through. Oh, wow. Sorry to Bond tempt you. Please tell me what you think about the Washington deal. Then I'll chime in.

Okay, when it comes to the Wizards, they're doing what I think is the hot new trend in the NBA, which is what I'm calling the flip. If you guys want to come up with a better term or put it in the comments and Jackson will read it. But the Jazz are doing it, the Wizards are doing it. The nets are kind of planning on doing it. We'll see if they do it. But the idea is you do your tank, but you acquire players so that as soon as you're ready, you can just immediately flip because the jazz message to their fans is this is the last year of the tank.

No matter what happens, we're done. And now the wizards are like, just you wait. Here comes Trey Young and Anthony Davis. And then we're going to do the flip. But both of them have top eight protected picks. And it's absolutely not an option for them not to have their picks this year. And so this is one of the reasons we'll see. I don't think Michael Porter is getting traded, but we'll see.

But this is one of the reasons why I think the nets are holding on to Michael Porter. So, you know, this is a new hot thing. So now this is Anthony Davis will probably not play for the Wizards this season. We'll see. We talked in the last pot about how the jazz are going to keep it. shut down. But the concept here is that they can come into next season and with a straight face say, we want to contend for the playoffs. That even though we're going to have these, you know, super young teams and multi-lottery picks from the years before, we've now pre-loaded

our team with veteran players. And I guess the NBA will be like, sure, no problem. And why, there's no rules. A lot of the rules are not enforced anyway. And so we're going to see a tankathon. And then next year, next year is the year to tank. because no one's going to be tanking next year. They're all going to have done the flip. Well, except for next year's draft isn't supposed to be strong, which might have something to do with the timing of, as you say, these flips. But yeah, these are pre-agency moves,

and they're going to make sure that these guys are completely healthy before getting them on the court and all those kind of things. There'll be a lot of precaution taken. But, you know, the Wizards, just like the Jazz, it was a long, drawn-out, tough luck rebuilding process because neither of them, you know, Alex Saar, they did the wizard's got a number two overall pick but not when there was like can't miss type of prospects at the top of the draft obviously the jazz haven't had that top of the draft type of lottery luck but you can only put your fan base through that sort of you know continued tanking for so long both of these franchises planned to be competitive next year and pounced on opportunities to acquire guys that put them in this position and look to the to the wizard's credit I think think the move made total business sense for the Mavericks, but the Wizards did not give up a single

homegrown young talent. You know, none of their recent picks that have shown some promise were in this deal. They did not give up a single premium pick. So now, what they did was put themselves in a position where Rich Paul is going to be knocking on that door and hey, I want an extension this summer. That's something the Wizards will have to deal with. it, but with Ritt or with AD, with Trey Young, with the Alex Sars and Kishon George's, Trey Johnson's, they can at least look in the mirror and say, you know what, we can be a competitive team next year for the first time under this front office. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this.

Yeah, I mean, look, I think the fascinating thing about this is going to be what are the contracts for Anthony Davis and Trey Young and what is this team going to look at. like going forward because, yeah, like they didn't give up much to get Tray Young and Anthony Davis, but there also wasn't a huge market for either Trey Young or Anthony Davis for different reasons. Trey Young, because of, you know, his stature and his ability to defend, like we've seen small guards really struggle in the league, in the way the league is right now with the size of physicality teams are playing with, so it'd be interesting to see how that goes. And Anthony Davis is a talented player who's now in his mid-30s, who has hurt a lot.

and available a lot. And I would assume that both of these guys are getting multi-year contracts this summer, Davis in and an extension and Young either opting in and extending or opting out becoming free agent and signing a new deal. And I understand why the Wizards did it for all the reasons you just said, Tim, I wrote a piece that should be up on dot com soon between the lack of appealing free agent options that are out there, the fact that there's now rules on the books that teams have have to be up near the salary cap at the start of the season. You can't go into the season

with cap space. You have to spend the money. If there's nothing to spend it on and you're in a non-desirable three-age free agent market and you can get good, very good star level players. Jared Jackson Jr. is an excellent player. Anthony Davis, when he's healthy, is an excellent player. I understand why they did that. Coupled with the fact that next year's draft is not seen to be good. There's a reason all these teams are all getting ready to be much better next year. like the NBA, I would assume, is going to do something about the idea of tanking in reaction to the past couple of seasons sometime this calendar year. The irony of that is the next couple of years. The draft is not very good.

And I think we're not going to see very many teams down near the bottom trying to be bad. Like there have been the past couple years because there hasn't been an incentive for it. But I think the ultimate question is the one that Kevin Pelton, our guy addressed in his grades, which is just how good is this wizard's team going to be? What did he, did he give the Wizards a nay here? I hope he did. I'm sure he did not. I would guess he gave, I, I would, I would guess it's a middle and great at best.

The Mavericks got to be. Because of how much money he's on his contract? Maverick's got to be and the Wizards got a C. Yes, because I would say, you're, you're commit, listen, for the reason. Now, listen, if you're just going by the talent coming in, Anthony Davis is a very good player. would agree on that. However, again, what is the contract going to be? He's going to be paid $58 million next year. If he signs a two or three year extension on top of that for $120 million or something and he's getting $40, $45 million a year until he's 37 years old,

that could end up looking pretty bad if he's not available. Well, then we'll evaluate it when he gets the contract. Well, but that part of the trade is about that. And listen. And maybe the wizards decide to play hardball and say, no, you've got 58 coming to your next year. You've got a player option for 63 and play it out. There's a lot of risk involved in that, which is part of the calculus for the Mavericks here. But, you know, it's a, you can only be awful for so long. Like, you know, tanking is a great strategy unless you're stuck in that spot.

They gave up a guy in a rookie contract who's been traded twice, other guys who are not going to... Let me ask you. And mediocre picks. You've laid out the trade, okay? Let's do the counterfactual. Why was Anthony Davis available for this package? Because the Mavericks needed to move on from that contract and potential extension.

Yes. That's right. That's not why. Because he's overpaid. But this is a team that can afford an overpaid player for two years. Yeah, they can, well, again, for two years, yes, they can afford him. The question, I think the reason I would give this a middling grade is the same reason I'm unsure about the Trey Young deal, which is if I knew Trey Young was on the team for next year only, I would feel great about that trade.

Well, I'm not arguing that the Trey Young trade was an A. Well, it's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that this one is an A. It's the exact same trade. No, it's absolutely not. Why is it not the same trade? It's the exact same. Because we know that Tray Young has a contract.

I wouldn't have done that. And we don't know that about Anthony Davis. So if he gets a contract extension, then I'll reevaluate. You know, the other thing, okay, I don't know. Washington, this all started with Washington, trading Bradley Beagle. And, you know, you connect all that. And, you know, they ended up with a fair amount of stuff for a guy with a terrible contract. But the whole point of trading Bradley Beale was not to be stuck.

in the middle without much upside with a veteran who was on a massive contract that he that was too much value for him you know now I will give the Wizards this the difference in this circumstance is they do have a decent core of young talent you know Alexar is a very promising player I don't know that face of the franchise is a bit much but he's a very talented player Keishon George has shown some promise I I'm not big on Kulah Bowley, but there's some talent there. Trey Johnson's shown some promise. I just, I don't, this makes, I think it makes the Wizards competitive next season.

I'm not sure that it makes them relevant, and I don't know. I don't think it's like, I don't think, I'm not booking hotel rooms in Washington. I'm just saying that we're not, we're not voting on the future of the Wizards. We're voting on this transaction or you're not voting, but casting judge about the transaction. Well, but part of the, part of the judge. is you're taking on all of this money and like, you know. They have to spend the money on somebody. I agree, which is why I understand why they did it.

But at the end of the day, there's a reason why his market was this tepid. He does not play. Like he's barely played. He's injured all the time. It's a giant amount of money. I could sum up my assessment of the trade for both sides in three words. I get it. Yes.

I get the wizards wanting to take a leap in a competitiveness and feeling like this is worth a role of the dice given that they really did not give up significant value in this. And I certainly get the Maverick saying, you know what, that Luca trades a sunk cost. Sure. You gave up Luca. This is all you got to show 40 years later. But you know what? This is what's best when you view it through the Cooper flag prism of his building around him in the future. It's a more exciting trade for Washington just because it is a trade designed to make them better, not right away, but next season. Right. It's not an exciting trade for the Mavericks. It's just a sensible trade for the match. It's eating broccoli. If you want to taking on DeAngelo Russell and his $6 million player option, eating broccoli, I'll take a –

By the way, I'll slap a minus on that deal for – I'll give a many minus because it's – They got to take Delo back. I was going to say putting DMPC, Delo Russell, in that deal was an underrated aspect of this. This was, they cleaned up a lot of Nico's mistakes in this trade. They offloaded something in the neighborhood of $50 million for next year's books. Yeah. Almost 70.

Yeah. Was it really? Does it that much? I didn't get out of the tax. And they got out of the tax this year. Like they, it was a necessary move for Dallas. And again, I totally understand why the Wizards made both trades. Like, I get it.

They did not give up very much to get good players in the building when they had to spend money and they're clearly getting ready to take steps forward. However, I'm not certain about how Trey Young is going to fit there just generally going forward. And I'm not in one with. Well, I know, but I'm just, it's, again, if you want to just talk about this trade, I have concerns about Anthony Davis staying on the court. And I have concerns about how much money Anthony Davis. is going to make.

And you have to talk about Tray Young because they have acquired them as a pre-agency pair. I agree, but I don't like the fact that they're going to give Tray Young what the word is they're going to give them. That is another conversation and that can. Well, and I would tell you, and I would tell you, if we're just going to, if we're going to say that, if this is the exact same transaction. They traded for a distressed asset star who wanted an extension who wasn't getting one with his current team. So. Yeah, but they didn't agree to an extension on this on this trade. Well, again, let's see what happened.

As much as I hate to agree with Bond, Timps, let's see how that plays out. I'm fairly certain they have not agreed to an extension with them. Well, I agree. I agree with that. They gave them the old wink-eity wink. Okay, but I agree. I've been told that there was no discussions about, you know, no problem. This has made no discussion.

When there's an extension, we'll discuss about it. Let me ask you. Wendy, you've known Rich Paul for quite some time. Have you not? 20-something years. When he's representing star players, what would you say his shooting percentage is, his field goal percentage,

on getting something close to what he wants for the all-star players that he represents? It's pretty good, but this situation is a little bit more complicated, but... Okay. Well, and I guess, my point is whether if there if there is an extension then there's that risk if there's not it will be complicated more hoop collective podcast after this well i'm just talking about the swap

that actually took place today i thought the wizard did pretty well part of the swap part of the swap does involve thinking about the long-term ramifications of the one i get that but he's under contract for two more years we talked about the wizards trading way bradby bill and you declared that the sons were a huge winner because they got Bradley Beale for nothing. And I said they took on a lot of money long term that they are maybe going to regret. And sure enough, don't you love the three-year-old told you soes from Bond Towns? I just, I mean, my goodness. Pointing out the circular nature of the discussion, that's all. And it's a bit ironic that we're talking about it in reverse now, potentially. I remember thinking that the Bradley Beal contract was one of the craziest contracts in the

league and that I could not believe that they got him, they got rid of him when he had a no trade clause. And I could not believe that Phoenix kept the no trade clause in place. I do think they gave, I do think at the time they gave no picks for him, which that was sort of revolutionary. They gave swaps. Yes. But they gave no picks. Yeah. Well, I will say that's. They gave up very low firsts and seconds. And the, you know, the whole getting back to Beal, you know, the Wizards will tell you, hey, we turn Beal and Kuzma in three years into Trey Young, AD,

and a big bundle of pick swaps. And, you know, okay, okay. Again, I think, too, just from a basketball standpoint that I meant to say before, is Alex Tsar has had a lot of success playing at center. So I assume now. Great, because AD will tell you he's a power forward. Well, right. But like, Alex Sar kind of wants to play Power 4.

too, just announce them both as forwards and everything will be fine. That's what happens. Positionless basketball. Now, seriously, though, as a defensive tandem, like, hey, Trey Young's obviously got some significant flaws defensively. This is, we talked about the jazz. By the way, this also eliminates a potential destination for Walker Kessler getting back to the jazz. But we talked about the jazz as rim-protecting tandem with, you know, they hope with Kessler and Jaron

Jackson Jr. Hey, Saur and AD as a rim protecting tandem, that's pretty good. How's it going to look offensively? You know, there's some things to figure out. Yeah. It's got to be fun a lot. And I'm glad to see the games adding talented players. And G. Wiz, the wizard's mascot now has someone to have his back. I'll tell you what, Jackson Hayes, man, I mean, who, maybe it was just a moving screen? Was it a cheap shot? Was it a moving screen? What was that? Jackson Hayes was suspended, costing himself tens of thousands of dollars, I might add.

That would have- For body-checking, gee whiz the other day. Seriously, if that happens like three weeks earlier on a random Wednesday, it's like the biggest story in the NBA that made. I wouldn't go that far. Well, okay, depending on the day. I think the biggest story in the NBA today, other than the trades, is that Shay Gildes-Alexander got hurt and is out several weeks,

and the Thunder are now missing another core player for a while. But by the way, and it's. an abdominal strain just like AJ Johnson. I say AJ Johnson. I screw that up. AJ Mitchell, they're very good second year guard

has been out with an abdominal strain for a while. And I think that's probably has something to do with the trade that they made to get guard held today. I think they like the value of that. I think they might have done it either way. But certainly, you know, Jared McCain is going to get a chance to play right away.

Okay, well, is this the last... Just one thing quick on the other trade that happened today. Kobe White ends up going from... There's a lot of other trades that happened. Well, one I wanted to highlight in particular based off of the pot we had come out this morning. Kobe White went from Chicago to Charlotte for some seconds and ironically was traded with Mike Conley. I'm just going to go back to the two things we talked about on the Wednesday morning pod, which is what is the plan for the Chicago Bulls, A, and B,

the Minnesota Timberwolves traded Mike Connolly to save money. And Mike Connolly barely makes less than Kobe White. If they had turned Mike Connolly into Kobe White, when they needed guard help all year, that would have been a pretty interesting move that would have helped the wolves get better. Him being off the board for a couple of seconds, I mean, Mike Conley, I think there's a decent chance

that gets waived and he ends up going back to Sano, Minnesota. But I will just reiterate what I said this morning. If the wolves come out of this deadline, having saved money and not made the team better, that's quite a message to send after back-to-back conference final. Well, when they were involved in a trade where they could have just gotten Kobe White in that trade. That's right. Could have just sent Mike Conley out and with another minimum and gotten Kobe White.

And Kobe White would have been a very nice upgrade for them. And the price was not outlandish. Well, again, today is only Wednesday. It's not Thursday afternoon. But we are monitoring. We'll argue about that tomorrow. I look forward to it. I look forward talking to you guys tomorrow as well,

both on the trade deadline special and our podcast afterwards. Thank you to Jackson and Devon for putting this one together. I hope for there's no more. Maybe there will be another emergency pod or whatever reaction pod. Who knows? We'll see. Talk to you whenever that happens.

Adios megos.