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Swanson: Trade deadline winners in a blowout, Lakers fully in win-now mode

February 7, 2025

LOS ANGELES — I’m so glad the Lakers traded for Mark Williams.

Not even because they filled a need at center, but because it ought to mean we’ll stop being inundated with all these inane takes about the Lakers punting away the season.

If trading to pair Luka Doncic with LeBron James – again Luka Doncic and LeBron James – wasn’t a sure sign that the Lakers are going for it, well, hopefully now you know: They’re going for it now.

So much of the discourse in the immediate aftermath of the Lakers’ bombshell Anthony Davis-for-Doncic deal was about how, by trading a 31-year-old center for a 25-year-old point guard, the Lakers seemed to be prioritizing the long term over the short term (read: 40-year-old James’ remaining tenure with the team).

It all brought me back to freshman algebra, because I was kind of lost there too. Except this time, I don’t think it’s me who’s misunderstanding; I think who’s getting it wrong are the boys in the back of the room that I used to spend all my class time talking hoop with.

You guys have always been silly: “For the next two years, I think Dallas won that trade,” Shaquille O’Neal said. “Yes,” Jay Williams said, the Mavericks are now the one team that could overtake Oklahoma City for the top seed. Stephen A. Smith? “I got Dallas as the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference right now.”

So, tell me if I have this right?

Anthony Davis + LeBron Davis on the fifth-seeded Lakers = Also-ran, team that needs help, yawn, meh.

Anthony Davis + Kyrie Irving on the eighth-seeded Mavs = Dangerous! A contender! Look out now!

I’m glad Davis is finally getting his due as a difference-maker on both ends, but I’m confused: Why did he only start getting it after he landed in Dallas? Where was that energy while he was in L.A., having his durability and reliability constantly questioned?

Meanwhile, while we were all picking our jaws up off the hardwood, either laughing at or cursing out Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison for making the move to deal Doncic without a suitably gargantuan haul in return, why then were so many people’s calculations: LeBron + Luka on the Lakers = No chance in 2025. But in the future …

This is me raising my hand. Because I need some help with this one: A basketball team makes a big trade. The return it gets is far-and-away the best player in the trade, why is the basketball team kicking the proverbial can down the road?

Why – what? I mean, that assertion doesn’t make sense …

Ohhh … Maybe some of you thought having LeBron and Luka – who was still sidelined on Thursday, working his way back from a calf strain, but who walked to midcourt to wave hello to a roaring crowd before tip-off against Golden State at Crypto.com Arena, where they tried to win for the eighth time in nine games – on the court at the same time might present redundancies? That they might get in each other’s way?

You could worry about that if LeBron hadn’t succeeded sharing the ball with everyone from Dwyane Wade to Matthew Dellavedova and Luka had not just gone to the NBA Finals sharing the rock with ball-handling savant Kyrie? Or if LeBron isn’t going to benefit from less usage.

Ohhh … it was the void at center left by A.D.’s departure? I could see that if you really believed the Lakers just wouldn’t solve for x, that they’d turn in their work at the trade deadline on Thursday without finishing the equation and just take the INCOMPLETE.

But that wouldn’t have just been wasting LeBron’s precious time, it would’ve been wasting Luka’s too and the Lakers weren’t going to do that, I didn’t think.

Yes, I was there, I know what GM Rob Pelinka said at Doncic’s introductory news conference on Tuesday morning: “We know that our roster has continued work to do to become complete. We know we have a need for a big (but) the market for bigs right now leading into the last two or three days of the trade deadline is very dry. There’s just not a lot available. … If there’s not a championship big on the market, I can’t wave a wand and create that opportunity.”

But then he dug into his bag of tricks, said “Alarte Ascendare” or something, and pulled off a trade for Williams from Charlotte on Wednesday night. He used the second and last of those first-round draft picks that have been burning a hole in fans and pundits’ pockets for the past two seasons to acquire a perfectly suited 7-foot, 241-pound lob threat.

It was almost as if Tuesday’s comments, delivered at the height of trade season, had been made to minimize how badly the Lakers wanted exactly that kind of center. As if he’d been negotiating.

And now everyone gets it, I hope. The Lakers have LeBron James and Luka Doncic, with their 231 regular-season triple-doubles between them (151 + 80 if you’re doing the math) and combined basketball IQs of 280 (OK, that’s a guess, harkening back to ninth-grade algebra) and Thursday’s chest bump between them after James drained a logo 3-pointer as time expired in the first quarter against the Warriors.

They can win now and they can win later. And they 100% won this trade deadline; it wasn’t close.

So let’s try it again, shall we? Luka Doncic + LeBron Davis on the Lakers = Dangerous! A contender! You better look out now.

Orange County Register

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Swanson: Trade deadline winners in a blowout, Lakers fully in win-now mode

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