Grade the Trade: Blockbuster 3-team pitch brings LaMelo Ball to shake up Mavericks

The Dallas Mavericks need to trade Anthony Davis. The Charlotte Hornets want to trade LaMelo Ball. Could a 3-team blockbuster grease the wheels for the Mavs to shake up their team and add a dynamic young All-Star guard? And should they want to?

Finding a viable trade for Anthony Davis is difficult because the Mavericks don't want to completely bottom out. They are not going to win anything of note with their current roster, and therefore moving on from Davis is almost a necessity; find value for him now before injuries, aging and losing make it impossible to get back positive value.

Yet most teams trading for Davis want to keep their win-now pieces and would be trying to stack contracts together to match his salary that are of no interest to Dallas. They could take those on, add draft capital and fully punt on the next couple of seasons, but that doesn't seem to be on the menu for Dallas.

Instead, building a 3-team trade could move Davis to a team trying to make a leap, send money and picks to a rebuilding team, and then route more of a foundational player back to the Mavericks. Such a construction is difficult to build, but not impossible. And with LaMelo Ball of the Charlotte Hornets coming onto the trade market, the chain is now taking shape.

Building a 3-team LaMelo Ball - Anthony Davis trade

What would such a 3-team trade look like? It would need to involve the Mavericks taking on both Ball and an additional salary, as Davis makes around $17 million more than LaMelo Ball. The Hornets can accomplish that by adding in Josh Green to the deal, a player the Mavericks know well after drafting him in 2020.

Davis can then move on to a third team -- and for this trade we chose the Chicago Bulls. They are ready to take a leap forward and add another star next to Josh Giddey. Davis is from the Chicago area and might be incentivized to stick around long-term and not demand the maximum money on an extension. And they have not depleted their draft assets like many other Davis suitors, so they can inject a couple of picks into the equation.

Those picks and matching salary are then routed to Charlotte, and we get a deal that looks like this:

The Bulls get a player who, at his best, is a Top-15 two-way force -- but who is also 32 years old and continually injured. They're rolling the dice on his upside, which is significant. The Hornets opt for draft value over players, with Coby White and two picks accompanied by over $40 million in salary.

Grade the Trade: Should the Mavericks do this?

The Dallas Mavericks would like to sell high on a player like Anthony Davis, as they certainly "bought high" on him in the Luka Doncic deal. The reality is that his injury history -- and present, for that matter -- are torpedoing his trade value. When you add in the difficulty of finding a trade partner who can handle his salary, you get a depleted trade market.

The Bulls are actually giving up decent value for Davis here, but that's not what the Mavericks are after. They would be rolling the dice on a partner for Cooper Flagg. Ball, still only 24 years old, is a former No. 3 overall pick with incredible passing vision and legitimate offensive vision.

He has also morphed into a largely unserious player wheeling and dealing on largely unserious Hornets teams over the last few years, and interspersed those roulette wheel performances with being sidelined with injuries. It's easy to dismiss Ball as a flashy performer who doesn't drive winning.

And yet. Since he took a leap in his second season and made the All-Star team, Charlotte has been significantly better when Ball has been on the court. Last season, per Cleaning the Glass, the Hornets were 9.5 points per 100 better with Ball than without him, an elite number. This season, the difference is even greater, with the Hornets 17.3 points better with Ball -- and have a positive net rating overall.

If Ball can stay healthy, there is a really good player to be unlocked. Pairing him with an elite roll man in Dereck Lively II and the ultimate "serious" basketball player in the ultra-competitive, do-it-all Cooper Flagg, and the Mavericks could have something. His injury history is concerning, but they are offloading the ultimate injury problem in Anthony Davis.

Is there a better trade for Davis out there? Perhaps. Should the Mavericks be prioritizing draft picks instead of a player? Probably. Yet if this is the path they want to walk, Ball has real potential to become an All-Star for the Dallas Mavericks. It's unlikely any other player on the table in a Davis trade will do that.

The Mavericks should truly think about this one.

Grade: B+