Anthony Davis’ situation is a bummer, and so is the NBA trade landscape

Anthony Davis is No. 2 on the Fanspo NBA trade machine’s list of trending players, but I do not recommend trying to come up with realistic deals for him. It is a frustrating exercise, and there’s a decent chance it will bum you out.

In theory, Davis’ situation should be simple: He’s turning 33 in March, and the Dallas Mavericks aren’t set up to succeed on his timeline. Both sides would be better off with a trade that sends him to a win-now team in exchange for a package of younger players and draft picks.

Every expert agrees, though, that the Mavericks can’t expect anybody to give up all that much for Davis. It doesn’t matter that he was the centerpiece of the Luka Dončić trade less than 10 months ago, and it doesn’t matter that he made Second Team All-NBA 17 months ago. “There’s not a lot of teams that are lining up” to acquire Davis, ESPN’s Tim Bontemps said on Monday‘s episode of the Hoop Collective. In the immediate aftermath of the Nico Harrison firing, The Ringer’s Zach Lowe said that the difference between what the Mavs gave up for Davis and what they’ll eventually get for him “will set the world record for the biggest delta in trade returns for one single player in the history of professional sports.”

The big issue is not that Davis arrived at training camp well above his normal playing weight. It’s not that he strained his calf a week into the regular season, either. It’s his contract.

Davis is making $54.1 million this season, is owed $58.5 million next season and has a $62.8 million player option in 2027-28, the season in which he will turn 35. Next August, he’ll be eligible to sign an extension that would pay him as much as $275 million over four years and as much as $76 million in 2030-31, the season in which he will turn 38.

The first hurdle is finding a team that is mechanically capable of putting a trade package together. That front office not only needs to believe it’s a Brow away from championship contention; it needs to believe it’s a Brow away from championship contention even after taking into account the loss of the players it is trading away. Those players’ 2025-26 salaries must total at least $43.1 million, and that team’s post-trade payroll cannot exceed the first apron.

The second hurdle is finding a team that isn’t scared of what it will have to pay Davis down the road. It doesn’t necessarily have to be willing to offer him a four-year max extension next summer, but it must be confident that it can extend him on a more team-friendly deal or be comfortable with Davis either hitting free agency in 2027 or picking up his 2027-28 option. Negotiating with future Hall of Famers in their mid-30s can be difficult.

And these obstacles are just about one side of the equation. Let’s say Davis returns to face his old buddies in Los Angeles on Friday, plays at an All-NBA level for the next few weeks and motivates a few teams to try to trade for him. Will these hypothetical suitors be willing to — or even have the ability to — trade multiple first-round picks for him? If not, will the Mavericks be interested in the young players that are on the table? It’s easy to say that the Mavs “should” trade Davis, but I have yet to see a fake trade involving him that seems both plausible and a no-brainer for them. It is not clear what bar must be cleared for them to find an offer acceptable.

If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s essentially the same story that we’ve seen with a number of stars under the NBA‘s latest collective bargaining agreement. There was not a robust trade market for Jimmy Butler, and the Miami Heat ended up accepting a package of Andrew Wiggins, Davion Mitchell, Kyle Anderson, a 2025 first-round pick (that landed at No. 20 and turned into Kasparas Jakučionis) in exchange for Butler, Josh Richardson and two second-round picks. The Phoenix Suns traded Kevin Durant for a fraction of what they’d given up to get him. The trade that ended Brandon Ingram‘s tenure with the New Orleans Pelicans wasn’t strictly a salary dump — they got a protected first-round pick out of it — but it felt a lot like a salary dump, didn’t it?

In Jake Fischer’s latest newsletter at The Stein Line, he writes that the Charlotte Hornets aren’t interested in moving LaMelo Ball in part because they are “unlikely to get the sort of offers for Ball they’d be hoping for,” which he describes as “somewhat reminiscent of the situation Anthony Davis faces in Dallas.” He also writes that the Sacramento Kings are “unlikely to bring back a significant haul” for Domantas Sabonis, Zach LaVine or DeMar DeRozan. All of these players are former All-Stars, and it’s not as if the whole league has decided they’re bad. DeRozan is the only one making less than $38 million this season, though, and, in this landscape, acquiring any of them is complicated.

Generally speaking, good teams are not looking for complicated. They don’t want to blow up what’s working, reorient everything in the middle of the season or set themselves up to be in salary-cap hell a couple of years from now. As trade season approaches — it unofficially begins on Dec. 15, the day that most players who signed new contracts last summer will be eligible to be traded — big names like Davis are bound to get the most attention, but they’re not the ones who will have the most suitors.

If you’re a buyer, your ideal target is probably a younger player who complements your core players on both ends, can defend multiple positions, doesn’t need tons of touches and is on a relatively cheap contract. This is why the only player ahead of Davis on the Fanspo’s NBA trade machine’s trending list is a fourth-year guard who is making $2.3 million this season: the Kings’ Keon Ellis. According to The Stein Line, more than half the league has called about him.