Lakers owner Jeanie Buss didn’t hold back about how she pulled off arguably the largest NBA trade ever with Dallas for Luka Doncic last month.
During an interview with NPR’s “Morning Edition” on Monday, Buss recalled Anthony Davis being unhappy along with his role in Los Angeles before trading the large man to the Mavericks.
“Anthony Davis was complaining about where he was being played and he wasn’t blissful,” Buss said. “So I feel this was a positive for each teams. They got what they were in search of; we got what we were in search of. And I didn’t know it was going to be international news prefer it was, but that’s the facility of the Laker brand and its ability to attract big names who want to jot down their very own chapter in Lakers history.”
Buss explained that the Lakers needed a recent piece after losing to the Nuggets within the playoffs the last three years.
“We gave up rather a lot to get Luka Doncic We’re blissful now we have him,” she said. “We now have lost the last three years in a row to the Denver Nuggets within the playoffs, and we actually didn’t have anything that was going to look different going into the playoffs again.”
During an appearance on “The Wealthy Eisen Show” last week, Buss said, “when the chance got here up, we weren’t trying to move Anthony Davis.”
Together with Doncic, the Mavericks traded Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris to Los Angeles for Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick in a three-team deal.
Utah received Jalen Hood-Schifino, a 2025 second-round pick via the Clippers and the Mavericks’ 2025 second-round pick.
Buss also said she took a page out of her dad Jerry Buss’ book to quietly pull off the trade of the season.
“You recognize, I learned from my dad — and I point to when the Lakers traded for [Basketball Hall of Famer] Pau Gasol — people hadn’t heard about it,” Buss told NPR of the blockbuster deal in 2008. “[Spurs coach] Gregg Popovich in San Antonio and [former Mavericks owner] Mark Cuban in Dallas threw a fit that we ended up with Pau. They never got a likelihood to bid on him or probably talk Memphis out of trading him to us.
“You realize in our business that loads of the rumors are planted by people within the industry who are attempting to curry favor with the media. There’s type of this ‘write good things about me as general manager and I’ll feed you my inside information. Then we each win.’
“On this particular case, I felt that if anybody heard concerning the trade through a rumor that there could be many parties attempting to undermine it. When Pau Gasol got here from Memphis to L.A., we won two championships due to it.”
Each Doncic and Davis said they were shocked by the trade, which shook the NBA world to its core on Feb. 1.
During an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Davis recalled reaching out LeBron James — his longest-tenured Lakers teammate — via FaceTime to get some insight into the trade because he didn’t imagine that “no one knew” within the Lakers’ organization about it.
“The front office has to do what it has to do and clearly they’re going to do what’s best for the organization. So I don’t know if I ever got the ‘real’ about any of it,” Davis said. “I don’t know what’s true or what’s not, coming from upstairs. So, my thing is I’m gonna go to my counterpart [James] who I’ve been running with and see what’s happening, get his response and that’s all it was. We had a conversation. That was it.
“Everybody’s saying no one knew and all this other s–t. I just don’t imagine it. But, hey man, I’m past that. I’m able to move forward with Dallas, attempt to get a championship there with these guys. First off, getting back on the ground and prepare to compete. All of the emotions, that’s — lasted that night when it was only a shock.”
The Lakers honored Davis — who helped bring a championship to the franchise alongside James within the 2020 NBA season — with a tribute video during LA’s 107-99 victory over the Mavericks last Tuesday.
Davis recorded 26 points and 16 rebounds before suffering the adductor injury in his Mavericks debut, a 116-105 win over the Rockets on Feb. 8.
