Giannis all but ruins Anthony Davis trade sweepstakes for the Mavericks

The biggest domino of NBA trade season just dropped. Two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo "is ready for a new home," per ESPN's Shams Charania, and "aggressive offers" have already been presented to the Milwaukee Bucks.

And that's bad news for the Dallas Mavericks, since it's hard to imagine anyone putting obvious trade candidate Anthony Davis atop their wish list now. Truth be told, he didn't appear all that popular to begin with, but this will silence his muted market and potentially delay the necessary bottoming-out process.

All coveted assets are tied up in the Antetokounmpo sweepstakes for the foreseeable future.

Whatever the Mavericks were hoping to land in return for Davis suddenly—and mercilessly—feels out of reach. Who's paying a premium for him when the market just added a younger, more dynamic, and clearly superior alternative?

The short answer is no one.

Before Antetokounmpo's trade request, Dallas could've tried to position Davis as the most decorated player on the market. That resume, which features 10 All-Star honors and five All-NBA selections, was hopefully enough for potential trade partners to ignore his ongoing availability issues or the slight statistical hits he's taken this season.

That option is out the window now. Because as rich as Davis' body of work might be, it can't compare to Antetokounmpo's. Beyond those two MVP awards, he's also been named Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP. He's also earned All-NBA distinctions nine times, with all but two of those selections being on the first team.

It's just a different caliber of stardom. Davis is great; Antetokounmpo is generationally great. No one can afford to give up anything of substance for the former, since it'd risk its chances of landing the latter.

What's worse for the Mavericks is that even though the calendar is bearing down on the Feb. 5 trade deadline, that won't necessarily clear things up. While Antetokounmpo would prefer changing locker rooms by next week, Charania noted that the Bucks have signaled that they are "not in a rush to complete a move" and could take this to "the offseason if [their] believed price point of a blue-chip young talent and/or surplus of draft picks isn't met."

In other words, the Davis saga is far from over. It's just been bounced to the back burner by the major news in Milwaukee.