With just under 48 hours until the NBA trade deadline, the league has already been turned on its head by big moves. The bombshell trade between the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Lakers, which was headlined by a superstar swap of Luka Dončić and Anthony Davis, has already been called one of the biggest in league history.
Sunday also saw another major deal: a three-team trade that sent De'Aaron Fox to the San Antonio Spurs, Zach Collins, Kevin Huerter, Tre Jones and a first-round pick to the Chicago Bulls, and Zach LaVine and a slew of draft picks to the Sacramento Kings.
ESPN's Brian Windhorst doesn't think this explosive trade deadline is finished, going so far as to say that the league has been unmoored by the Dončić-Davis deal. The Golden State Warriors have been cited as a franchise now looking for its own superstar acquisition.
"This shook up a lot of people," Windhorst said. "Steph [Curry] said the other night there's only a few people in this league that can go to sleep every night knowing they'll wake up on the same team, and I agree with him, but I thought Luka was on that list. So there's a little bit of shaking under the feet in the league right now."
"This shook up a lot of people." 👀 @WindhorstESPN says a "series of big moves" could be coming after the Lakers' trade for Luka Doncic 😲 pic.twitter.com/Km3qnhIN7t
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) February 4, 2025
Windhorst compared the ripple effects of the Mavericks-Lakers trade to conference realignment in college athletics, and while his Boise State-ACC example isn't completely accurate (the Broncos are bound for the new-look Pac-12), it's clear he expects teams to be aggressive in response to the deal.
"That trade created action elsewhere. I compared it to, we saw it in college football when a team switched a conference—one team would switch and all of a sudden Boise State's in the ACC. That's possible here. We could see a cascading series of big moves that are happening because something psychologically happens. And I'm telling you, they feel it in the league. ... Listen to what Draymond was saying last night, what Steph was saying last night. They're feeling it too."
The Warriors, for example, have been connected to LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Paul George and Jimmy Butler, in recent days, with ESPN's Shams Charania stating that Golden State is "legitimately calling about every All-Star player."
At the same time, this kind of movement means no player is safe, with Curry and Green, the two remaining stalwarts from the Warriors dynasty, implying as much after the Dončić deal.
"You got to expect that they are going to be aggressive," Green said after Golden State's Monday win over the Orlando Magic. "It's not an organization that is going to do anything dumb but they are going to look to be aggressive. And I understand it, I respect it. "
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Brian Windhorst Describes Winds of Change Coming to NBA Ahead of Trade Deadline.
