AJ Johnson's inclusion in Mavericks' Anthony Davis trade looks worse by the day

When the Dallas Mavericks acquired AJ Johnson in the deal that sent Anthony Davis to the Washington Wizards, Johnson was touted as a promising young flyer, but now Dallas is looking foolish for even acquiring Johnson in the first place. Johnson was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies in a six-team deal where Dallas acquired Santi Aldama earlier this offseason, and now he's already been traded by the Grizzlies to the New Orleans Pelicans.

There were a couple of other young players Dallas could've acquired from Washington instead of Johnson, such as Malaki Branham, but Dallas took the upside play with Johnson, and learned quickly he wasn't going to pan out for them. Dallas' trade of Davis was clearly a flexibility play, as the two first-rounders they got back in return were both guaranteed to be late firsts, so Johnson was really the only intriguing young player in the deal.

AJ Johnson's NBA future is already looking extremely bleak

Of course, Dallas already used one of those firsts to flip for Sergio De Larrea on draft night, so while the deal can't be fully judged yet, there's no doubt Dallas didn't gain much from a player-to-player perspective, even as injury-riddled as Davis is.

Marvin Bagley III and Khris Middleton both left the roster in free agency already, so whatever talent Dallas can extract from De Larrea, the 2030 first-round pick from the Golden State Warriors (top-20 protected), and the three second-round picks from the Wizards, will be what they ultimately got in return for Davis.

As low as Davis' value was at the time of the trade, it's still fairly underwhelming that Dallas got no young prospects (that aren't draft picks) back from the Wizards in the deal once it's all said and done. While Johnson's speed, length, and explosiveness touted him as interesting developmental project, he simply hasn't shown enough through two seasons to stay in the NBA.

Johnson being on his fifth team shows how low Davis’ value was

Perhaps this could change at his next stop in New Orleans, but Johnson has multiple areas he needs to work on if he ever wants his best attributes to shine at the NBA level. He's only 160 pounds, which has hurt his ability to finish at the rim against NBA defenses, and has given him problems on the other side of the floor in terms of being able to defend against stronger opponents at the point of attack.

He also shot just 32.2 percent from the field and 15.6 percent from outside during his 23 games in Dallas, and this was on a Mavericks team that wasn't playing competitive basketball toward the end of last season. Johnson must add strength and make some major strides as a shot creator in this league if he wants to have any sort of NBA future, and even on a young team like the Mavericks, they deemed he was still too far away from his ceiling for them to continue to hold onto.

Overall, Johnson still getting bounced around the league at this point in the offseason is an indictment toward how measly a package Dallas had to settle for in the Davis deal. However, the Davis deal gave Dallas needed flexibility, and it didn't seem like they were going to find another trade for him ahead of the trade deadline based on the fact he played in a career-low 20 games last season.

This was simply a case of the Mavericks being forced to take what they could get for a man that was previously traded for Luka Doncic, as the return package headlined by Johnson at the time, has undoubtedly proven to be underwhelming early on.

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