The Athletic NBA Daily
Fox Traded to the Spurs EMERGENCY POD + Luka with the Lakers
Mon, 03 Feb 2025
The Sacramento Kings are finalizing a trade to send De’Aaron Fox to the San Antonio Spurs for multiple draft picks and Zach LaVine in a multiteam trade. Dave DuFour, Zena Keita, and Es Baraheni react to the Kings trade haul, the Fox and Wemby fit in San Antonio, and how the Luka Doncic trade ending the player empowerment era. Then, Lakers Nation’s Trevor Lane joins the show to talk about the Lakers landing Luka, how aggressive Los Angeles will be at the trade deadline, and how the team can build around Luka.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Es Baraheni, Zena Keita, & TrevorExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson Moody Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What trade did the Sacramento Kings finalize?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily. Coming up, we had a crazy weekend. Maybe the worst trade in sports history. We've got Trevor Lane to talk about the Lakers side of that, the good part. And Darren Fox got moved. Good morning, everybody. Good evening. Actually, it's a second emergency podcast. I'm Dave Dufour here with Espera Henney and Zena Keita.
And while we were setting up to talk about the Luka Doncic trade, De'Aaron Fox got moved, guys. Emergency pod. I don't know. Get the sirens going. Get the alarm bells going. Here's the deal. The Spurs get De'Aaron Fox and Jordan McLaughlin. The Kings get Zach Levine.
Three first-round picks, 20-25 from Charlotte, which is actually protected heavily and is going to wind up being a 20-26 second and a 20-27 second. The 20-27 first from San Antonio and the 20-31 first from Minnesota. They also got three second-round picks thrown in. The Bulls jumped in on this trade, as you heard.
Zach Levine going to the Kings, and they pick up Zach Collins, Trey Young, Kevin Herter. Trey Young? Excuse me. Trey Young. I mean, that would have been a great return. I got Luke on the brain. Trey Jones, Kevin Herter and their own 2025 pick. So they control their own destiny this year, even though it may be too late to tank for them. Zena, I'm going to start with you here again.
We just got this news. What is your just initial reaction to this trade?
Zach Levine, DeMar DeRozan back together again. Reunited. And it feels so good. Does it feel good, though? Is it going to move the needle for the Kings?
Yeah.
I felt so bad for the Kings when De'Aaron Fox announced that he didn't want to be there anymore. I feel even worse now that they got Zach Levine back. Because don't get me wrong, Zach Levine, DeMar DeRozan, absolutely known for their scoring ability. What they are not known for is winning a lot of playoff series. What they're not known for is getting to the finals.
What they're not known for is being the duo that's going to elevate teams to the championship. And so I'm looking at the Kings and I'm like, I'm so sorry. You've lost here in Fox. Sure. You got Zach, you got some picks. Those picks are, Our smoke and mirrors, folks. And so I just – I feel bad for them, really, really bad for them.
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Chapter 2: How does Zach Levine fit with the Kings?
Three of whom need the ball in their hands.
Three of them absolutely need the ball in their hands.
Maybe even four. Yes.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sabonis definitely needs the ball in his head. So like you're looking at a team that has a pretty skeptical fit moving forward. And so you look at Sacramento and the idea moving forward with the De'Aaron Fox trade is a win now move, right? They wanted to win now. They wanted to keep competitive. I'm not sure in this stacked Western Conference, this is a keep competitive move.
And you mentioned the pick, Zena. Yeah. 2025 Charlotte pick turns into two seconds. The 2027 San Antonio pick is going to be in the 20s, likely with De'Aaron Fox and Wemby, which we'll talk about in a second, going to be a pretty bad pick. And then the 2031 Minnesota pick, yes, that's good. But it's also, you know, the earth might not exist in 2031.
Yeah, we don't know what's going to happen.
You know what I mean? So, like, I don't necessarily see the vision from the Kings side, especially because – On San Antonio, you have Stephon Castle, couldn't get Stephon Castle. You had Devin Vassell, couldn't get Devin Vassell. Hey, even Keldon Johnson, you couldn't get Keldon Johnson. Jeremy Sohan, can't get Jeremy Sohan.
The Spurs were littered with young guys, intriguing players to go out and get.
Zach Collins went to the Bulls, and he could have maybe helped the Kings, to be honest with you. Look, the Kings side of this is very confusing to me, and it does make me wonder, okay, they can't be done. I don't know if it's moving DeMar. I don't know if it's maybe you flip Levine and you've got Monk or Malik Monk. There's more assets coming.
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Chapter 3: What does De'Aaron Fox bring to the Spurs?
You've got the Rockets who have had this great season. Now, all of a sudden the Mavericks, it's an old team. now. And the Spurs are young, but they've just brought themselves, in my opinion, into contention to a certain degree. They're maybe not title contenders, but they're going to be more middle of the pack now that they have a player of De'Aaron Fox's caliber.
So, you know, this is a huge move for them going forward. I think that this is the first step of building a championship level contender around Victor Wiminyama.
Yeah, they have their work cut out for them this season. They're 21 and 25. They're two games behind for the 10 seed. So it'll be interesting to see last third of the season how they claw back because I think they will. Adding Fox is definitely enough for them to try to claw back into the playing race. It'll be interesting to see how they can play upset basically for the rest of the year.
I think like you mentioned, the Fox-Wemby gap. pairing is seamless and one of the interesting aspects to this is that fox can now learn from chris paul and i think that's a really cool guy for fox to learn pretty cool because the decision making the playmaking the pick and roll pairing all that type of reunited with harrison barnes
reunited yes absolutely yeah they're basically it i think that part is really intriguing to me because fox if anything is a great mid-range creator really really good defender one area where i would like for him to get better at is that playmaking aspect and so when you add that plus fox plus wemby i like it a lot very very good team yeah um dina you got anything else on this
I just think it's so scary how when you look at the Spurs depth chart, the top name that the Kings got from the Spurs is in the fourth position for the center. Fourth position for the center. It's crazy. They got away with so much in this trade. Shout out to the Spurs. They're set up for success.
Okay, so I had my brain ripped out Saturday night, guys. We all did.
Dave, you deserve this space.
Let me give you guys some props because, you know, hey, I'm here every day, and it's a lot of fun, and we have a great time. These guys, the Emergency Podcast, excellent job on the Emergency Pod. It's worth checking out. Alex Spears jumped in with Zena and S to break down the Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis trade. I want to tell you guys a story of how I found out about this.
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Chapter 4: How will Luka Doncic's trade impact player empowerment?
Anyway, I've been in shock. I don't have a take necessarily on the trade because it's irrational.
illogical and just doesn't make sense if it was a video game and i showed it to you you'd say man you're just cheating it doesn't even work in 2k yeah anyway hey shout out to rob palinka he answered the right phone call right yeah and and this is how this stuff happens if you're the lakers uh speaking of which s sat down with trevor lane to talk about how great it is to be the lakers right now
The Los Angeles Lakers are a franchise of superstars, you know, dating back to basically the start of the franchise. You think of, you know, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Wilt, Kareem, Magic, basically anybody, right? Shaq, Kobe. It's just the list goes on and on. And then LeBron and AD. And now Luka Doncic. We are joined with Trevor Lane, host of Lakers Nation and the NBA Front Office Show.
Trevor, thanks. We've had a little bit to digest. 24 hours of figuring out what in the world happened yesterday shocked everybody in, I think, the sports world with this trade. How does it feel that Luka Doncic is a Los Angeles Laker?
Definitely. I mean, there have been a number of times in the last 24 hours or so where I've double-checked and looked at the Lakers roster and went, oh my God, he's actually there. This really happened. This is real life. In the little sleep that I got last night in the wake of the trade, I woke up probably 50 times to double-check my phone and be like, wait, this actually happened. It's crazy.
It is absolutely crazy. The Lakers, they found a way to
to consistently land stars in the nba it's a who's who of nba stars that have put on uh the purple and gold and i gotta say uh lakers fans we are very very spoiled uh for the stars that have graced this franchise but it's been absolutely incredible and uh and now they've got another guy that they hope they're going to be able to build around for the next 10 years or so
Yeah, not every team can just say, well, we're the Los Angeles Lakers. We're going to be able to attract these free agents and basically trade for them if we decide to as well, which is the perks of being the Los Angeles Lakers. I know there's been tons of conversation about the Mavericks side of things, but I think the Lakers side is equally important.
as intriguing because they've gotten Luka now. And so they can start at the starting point of building around this superstar, one of the best players in the NBA. And I think there's a tendency, especially with the trade deadline, you know, in the next couple of days to think about, well, what kind of moves are they going to end up doing in this next week?
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of the Mavericks' decision?
Chapter 6: How does the Kings' trade affect their future?
As the fan base was, too.
And, you know, again, we're going to get and we've already gotten and even here we've gotten the knee jerk. We've gotten reporting. You know, we're going to get reporting all week. The Mavericks, Nico Harrison and Jason Kidd had one of the most awkward and disgusting I dare say insane press conferences that I've seen in sports. Bizarre. It may be the worst trade in any sport ever. I don't know.
It's that weird. But it was so out of left field to me that I thought it must have been fake. And, well, as we all know – Not fake at all. And so my – I have takes on the trade, obviously. Yeah, what's your perspective on it? We want to know. I just want to say this. The trade itself is weird, and the basketball part of it is so separate from why it's weird.
Year seven, Luka Doncic, when he's eligible for a five-year Supermax extension that he wants to sign, it is – a break from the norms of the establishment basketball operations of the NBA to trade that guy when he hasn't demanded a trade or done something that has caused him to like disparage the team or something negative outwardly.
So unless there's something we don't know, which of course I can't know, this is completely out of left field.
Well, the thing is, what about Carl Anthony Towns? Because I feel like there was a baby version of that happening this offseason, of Carl Anthony Towns being traded, not having caused any issues, literally having been in the playoffs, being on a contender team. And then you have the next level. Exactly. Go ahead.
So Carl Anthony Towns gets moved, and we all say, well, that second apron, the new CBA. Teams are trying to duck the tax. And we've watched the way that the Jimmy Butler and Miami Heat saga has played out since the denial of the contract extension and over the course of the season.
And I would say if the Carl Anthony Towns trade and the Jimmy Butler part was like cracks in the foundation of the player empowerment era, the Luka Doncic trade might have been a bulldozer. This was a team saying no to an MVP-level generational talent, which is different than just generational talent. This is not De'Aaron Fox we're talking about. This is Luka Doncic.
He's probably going to go down as one of the best to ever play in the NBA. We know the numbers. We know the five-time All-NBA. We know the five-time All-Star. We know everything about this guy. He just went to the finals last year. This is a sea change in NBA management where apparently the Mavericks have just said, No, we're not going to tolerate the way you do business anymore.
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