NBA trade deadline - Lakers headline winners, losers of wild week - ESPN

Now that the dust has settled on perhaps the busiest week of in-season trading in NBA history, it's time to take stock of who came out ahead and who might regret making their deadline moves — or doing nothing.

Saturday night's shocking deal sending superstar guard Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for a package headlined by fellow incumbent All-NBA pick Anthony Davis set the tone for what was to come. De'Aaron Fox (San Antonio Spurs), Zach LaVine (Sacramento Kings), Jimmy Butler (Golden State Warriors), Brandon Ingram (Toronto Raptors) and Andrew Wiggins (Miami Heat) are all former All-Stars still playing near that level who moved teams.

Notably, the league's best teams were relatively quiet. Only the Eastern Conference-leading Cleveland Cavaliers, who acquired De'Andre Hunter from the Atlanta Hawks, made a significant trade from near the top of the standings. Unless Doncic and fellow newcomer Mark Williams can jell with LeBron James more quickly than expected or Davis lives up to the Dallas Mavericks' expectations for pairing him with Kyrie Irving, the title race probably didn't shift much over the past week.

Nonetheless, there's a lot to unpack as we consider winners and losers of the NBA trade deadline — starting, of course, with the Doncic trade.

Let's not overthink this.

Had the Lakers given up Davis, both of their tradeable first-round picks (2029 and 2031), a swap in 2030, Max Christie and Dalton Knecht for Doncic alone, nobody would have blinked an eye. That's how valuable Doncic is after finishing third in MVP voting last season at age 25.

Instead, the Lakers managed to use those young players and picks to land not only Doncic but also Williams as a replacement at center. I'm still not entirely sure how good