Draymond Green believes Luka Doncic trade is byproduct of new CBA

Draymond Green believes Luka Doncic trade is byproduct of new CBA

Los Angeles Lakers superstar Luka Doncic is expected to make his team debut Monday against the Utah Jazz after missing over a month of action with a left calf strain.

Doncic was inexplicably traded earlier this month in a five-player deal in exchange for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick. It not only shocked the entire NBA, but the entire sports universe.

Golden State Warriors Draymond Green offered his thoughts on his podcast, The Draymond Green Show with Baron Davis, last week, and pointed to the new CBA as to why Dallas was more willing to pull the trigger on this deal.

“When (the new CBA) first leaked that we were agreeing to a deal, and they released the terms, I went on this whole tweet storm,” Green said last week. “I spoke on the pod about how dumb that CBA was. And now? You see Luka Dončić getting traded? Don’t for one second think that’s not also a byproduct of that dumbass CBA we signed. You put in a hard cap. The second apron? It is a hard cap. And yeah, every time somebody gets up to that second apron, you can bet your bottom dollar they’re going to be trying to trade out of it. And so you just saw Luka Dončić get traded at 25. That’s crazy. That is a byproduct of the second apron.”

The second apron was put in place ahead of the 2023-24 season for more parity, thus making it inherently more difficult for teams to win with more than two max players on their books.

Doncic, 25, would have been eligible to sign the supermax deal–worth five years, $345 million–this upcoming offseason, which is a huge financial risk. But it’s also Luka Doncic–a top-3 player, at worst, in the NBA when he’s healthy and hasn’t even reached his physical prime. While he hasn’t, he’s still averaged 32-9-9 over his previous three seasons and helped lead the Dallas Mavericks to their first NBA Finals in over a decade.

Paul Pierce doesn’t see Luka Doncic, LeBron James fitting together

Green is right about the new CBA being the “hard cap.” There are significant limitations that teams in the second apron have when it comes to building a roster–through trades or free agency–which is why some teams are making more shrewd financial decisions. Flexibility is something that every front office wants to operate with; there is a reason why most teams weren’t willing to take on Bradley Beal‘s $161 million over the next three years.

We can argue about the why all day, but how the Doncic trade went about was more indefensible. We will see over time if this pays off, but I will be interested to see if more players on max deals will be dealt–before they’re disgruntled–under this restrictive CBA.

***

Click Here for more NBA Content

Subscribe to Vendetta’s Twitch

Subscribe to Vendetta’s YouTube

Check out the Vendetta Shop

Check out Vendetta Fantasy Contests