I was at a friend’s birthday party a year ago when news of The Trade first hit our phones.
Not too long after, amid all of the rampant disbelief that the Dallas Mavericks were actually parting with Luka Dončić of their own volition, my screen flashed with an incoming text from one source with knowledge of the situation.
Then another.
So I rushed out a confirmation post with verbiage that I had to read aloud to myself a few times, heart pounding up my throat, struggling to believe it was really true … because it sounded utterly crazy.
The Trade … one year later
The Los Angeles Lakers are in New York on this final Sunday before the Super Bowl to visit the Knicks for NBC’s first installment of Sunday Night Basketball since (whoa) June 9, 2002.
It was an earthquake that sent the NBA marketplace — as well as this newsletter — into a frenzy. The fact that Dončić was somehow on the table made nobody feel off limits before the 2025 trade buzzer. And that helped inspire the Golden State Warriors, on this same Monday before the deadline one year ago, to ramp up their efforts to try to pry Kevin Durant from the Phoenix Suns before the Warriors ultimately switched gears and landed Jimmy Butler from Miami.
My own One Year Later piece to go with our publisher’s that I’ve enclosed above? This one goes deep on the Warriors’ latest pursuit of an All-NBA megastar and several more related Trade Season topics.
There was some tangible belief over the weekend emanating from the Bay Area to suggest that the Warriors feel like they have a real shot to acquire Giannis Antetokounmpo from Milwaukee before Thursday’s 3 PM ET trade deadline … if the Bucks indeed prove willing to part with their Face of the Franchise this week rather than waiting for the offseason.
That said …
