NBA Insider exposes brutal truth about Mavericks' embarrassing Quentin Grimes trade

The Dallas Mavericks' 2025 trade deadline could end up going down as the worst trade deadline for one team in NBA history, as the team made two questionable moves that have both worked out horribly for them thus far.

The first move, which still has the NBA world in shock, was their decision to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis. Nico Harrison's decision to trade Doncic out of nowhere has not gone over well with the Mavericks fan base, as fans are nowhere near as engaged as they were last season during the team's trip to the NBA Finals. Fans can't believe that Harrison gave up on Doncic before he turned 26 years old, but the Doncic trade isn't the only move that the Mavericks made in which the team punted on a player before they hit their prime.

On the day of the trade deadline, Dallas traded Quentin Grimes to the Philadelphia 76ers for Caleb Martin, and Grimes has flourished in Philadelphia while Martin has floundered in Dallas. Martin has not panned out to be the player they thought he was going to be, a defensive ace with good length, and Grimes is looking like a budding star.

Quentin Grimes never wanted out, but the Mavericks traded him anyway

Grimes is averaging 22.0 points, 4.9 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and 1.6 steals per game while shooting 48.9 percent from the field and 38.4 percent from downtown, and everything about this trade is looking like a failure for Dallas. The Mavericks also sent the Sixers their own 2025 second-round pick in this deal, which is projected to be one of the first picks of the second round, but that isn't even the worst part about this deal.

There were rumors that Grimes' camp asked out of Dallas ahead of the trade deadline after they acquired Max Christie from the Lakers, and those rumors have been debunked since. According to NBA insider Marc Stein (subscription required), "Grimes' camp did not explicitly request a trade out of Dallas, despite suggestions to the contrary."

He made it clear that Grimes and his camp didn't want to be moved out of Dallas, making this trade look even worse. Things would have been different if Grimes wanted to be traded, but he didn't. He was one of Dallas' best players off the bench and one of the only players on the team who could consistently create his own shot while playing lockdown defense on the other end, and they still sent him to Philadelphia.

To make matters worse, the Mavs also had the option to veto the trade after Martin's hip injury turned out to be more serious than expected after going through a physical. Dallas still ended up going through with the trade, as the Sixers ended up throwing in a second-round pick in 2030 to sweeten the deal, but even that doesn't make this trade worth it.

Mavericks fans will always remember the 2025 trade deadline being the year that Harrison traded Doncic and broke the hearts of Mavs fans everywhere, but the Grimes trade could turn out to be a major disaster as well, especially since he had no plans of wanting to be traded out of Dallas and was shocked when the deal went down. Harrison's bets against both Grimes and Doncic don't look to be aging well right now, and the only thing that could justify these moves is a championship in the near future with the new-look core.