What if the Portland Trail Blazers moved off of Anfernee Simons this offseason, the Dallas Mavericks loaded up ahead of Cooper Flagg’s arrival, and the Los Angeles Lakers joined the deal to finally get LeBron James a frontcourt anchor?
That’s the proposal from CBS Sports, which floated a spicy three-team trade where everyone gets what they want.
Check out the details and our analysis of the proposed deal below, and hit the Oregon Sports News comments to share if you’d make this trade with Dallas and the Lakers.
The Trade Idea
- Mavericks Receive: Anfernee Simons
- Lakers Receive: Daniel Gafford
- Trail Blazers Receive: Maxi Kleber, Caleb Martin, Dalton Knecht, Dwight Powell, 2029 unprotected first-round pick (via LAL), 2031 unprotected first-round pick (via LAL), 2030 Lakers pick swap rights
Portland Trail Blazers
The big headline for Portland is moving Simons, who CBS Sports called “probably the best non-All-Star guard on the market.” But this deal is less about what Portland gives up and more about what it opens up.
With Simons out of the picture, the backcourt belongs entirely to Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe. Both are 21, and both need opportunities to grow. In this scenario, Scoot no longer has to share touches with another lead guard, and Sharpe gets a real shot to emerge as a No. 1 or 2 option.
The other thing this deal does is open up more creation chances for Deni Avdija, who at first quietly and then quite loudly took off this past season. If Scoot, Sharpe, or Deni were to pop off after a Simons trade, it would make the trade worth it almost automatically.
That said, the Blazers would also walk away with a relative haul that includes two unprotected Lakers picks (2029, 2031) and swap rights in 2030.
If the Lakers don’t botch the Luka Doncic era, those picks may not be as valuable as the draft capital Portland snagged from Milwaukee in the Damian Lillard trade. But adding L.A.’s picks to the war chest creates more assets for future drafts and future trades alike.
Of course, the players headed to Portland are interesting, too. Maxi Kleber from L.A. and Dwight Powell from Dallas are likely re-routed to other teams in separate, subsequent deals for additional future draft picks. That, or it lights a fire under general manager Joe Cronin to find deals for Deandre Ayton and/or Robert Williams.
A young shooter in Dalton Knecht is also intriguing. The Lakers’ rookie saw diminishing returns and a reduced role as the regular season progressed, and he was unplayable in the postseason. Also, the Lakers technically traded him once already for a center at the deadline, a deal that was only rescinded because of a failed physical from Hornets center Mark Williams.
All of that can make you question if the Lakers see something now that they don’t like and didn’t see at the draft. But you can’t deny Knecht displayed strong three-point shooting at the start of the year, and he even had a 37-point game back in November. It would be interesting to see if he and Caleb Martin (coming over in this deal from Dallas) would be rotation pieces right away.
Anfernee Simons In Dallas
The Mavericks aren’t dealing directly with the Lakers here, not after the backlash they received the last time. Instead, Portland serves as an impartial third party, making things cleaner for all sides, but also offering up the best player by far in this six-player swap.
Ahead of Cooper Flagg’s arrival, Dallas gets a plug-and-play 25-year-old scorer who would help bridge the gap between the 18-year-old Flagg and the 32-year-old Anthony Davis. He’d also replace the ball handling, scoring, and shooting the Mavs lost in the Luka trade, and when Kyrie Irving tore his ACL back in March.
If you’re the Blazers, sending Simons to an in-conference rival that’s desperate to win now and that wants to build a dynasty is…well, a dangerous play. There’s a reason star players are often traded out of their conference, and it’s so the team trading them is less likely to be on the wrong end of a postseason revenge tour.
Trading Simons, though, has felt like a long time coming. And while Portland fans won’t want to ever see him beat the Blazers, they likely want to see him compete, which is something he’d do in a meaningful way in Dallas.
Lakers Add Size
The Lakers offload distant picks and some depth here, but they don’t care about that because their objective is simple: Grab Daniel Gafford, one of the most mobile defensive bigs in the league, and pair him with Luka and LeBron for a playoff run.
Knowing that LeBron’s clock is ticking, L.A. fills a hole that’s lingered for years, and it adds a player in Gafford who would’ve helped immensely this postseason against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Grade
This is the type of trade a smart, rebuilding team makes to find opportunities for potential franchise pieces. It also reduces rotation redundancy for the Blazers, and it establishes a more organized, age-consistent core around which to build.
Overall, all three teams can feel good about this one. It helps answer questions they each have, and quite frankly, it sets up NBA fans for a potential Mavericks-Lakers bloodbath 2026 playoff series.
In the end, though, if one of Scoot, Sharpe, or Avdija makes a leap after this trade, this deal goes down as the day the Blazers finally hit the gas with a direction in mind.
There will be risk attached to any Simons deal, but in this case, that risk is worth the potential reward.
Trail Blazers Trade Idea Grade: A
