Anthony Davis trade proposal brings Mavericks star home to Bulls

The 2025-26 Chicago Bulls started the season 5-0, punctuated by a 135-125 win over the New York Knicks that had color commentator and analyst Stacey King declaring that this team was “the real deal”. Suffice to say, that proclamation was a bit premature. The Bulls have played uneven basketball since then, and they now have a 9-9 record following their Friday night NBA Cup loss to the Charlotte Hornets, of all teams.

Losing is already bad enough, but doing so against the Hornets should raise some alarm bells for this perennially middling Bulls franchise. Year after year, they end up in the middle of the pack in the Eastern Conference, and this has prevented them from actually getting the high draft pick the team needs to perhaps get the franchise-altering they desperately need to make the climb.

This is not to say that the Bulls roster is devoid of talent. In fact, they have so many promising building blocks that they shouldn't be too far away from contending, especially in the weaker East. They have Josh Giddey, Coby White, and Matas Buzelis as quality building blocks, but the rest of the team around them needs so much work, especially on the defensive end.

The Bulls' defense ranks 23rd in the league at the moment in points allowed per 100 possessions, and they need to turn things around on that end of the floor if they were to compete moving forward. And just as luck would have it, a hometown hero who happens to be elite on the defensive end in Anthony Davis could end up being available for trade especially as the Dallas Mavericks continue to struggle.

Bulls acquire Anthony Davis from the Mavericks with this trade package

Bulls trade: Matas Buzelis, Noa Essengue, Isaac Okoro, Zach Collins, Dalen Terry, 2028 and 2030 CHI first-round picks

Mavericks trade: Anthony Davis

Bulls fans may not end up reading this part already in protest of Buzelis' inclusion in this trade offer. But realistically, the only way they are going to get the Mavericks to trade Davis away would be to include their best prospect on a rookie-scale contract in addition to all the first-round picks they can give up.

Again, before any Bulls fan makes fun of this hypothetical, they must bear in mind that I do not endorse the idea of their team trading for Davis. This is just an exploration of what it would take to pry away Davis from the Mavericks. And considering how much the Mavs have invested in Davis, then that package above may not even be enough even though Bulls fans would think that their team is giving up the world already.

Davis is 32 years of age (about to turn 33 in March), and he's only recently returned from a calf strain that's sidelined him for the past 14 games. He also wasn't quite at his best yet in his return to the court, scoring just 12 points and hauling in five boards in 28 minutes in a 129-119 loss to his former team, the Los Angeles Lakers.

Nonetheless, Davis is still one of the best rim protectors in the league, and players like him don't grow on trees. While general manager Nico Harrison was wrong to hitch his wagon onto Davis instead of doing so onto Luka Doncic, one could see why any talent evaluator would want Davis on the team. He blocked three shots on Friday, and he would give the Bulls a man in the middle whom they can rely on on both ends — a stark contrast from Vucevic.

Of course, there's always going to be the matter of Davis' health. Now that he's approaching his mid-30s, he's not going to be less injury-prone, that's for certain. All the concerns surrounding Davis and his availability issues are valid, and should give the Bulls some pause, especially when they're giving up Buzelis in such a trade.

Buzelis is a sophomore whose game is also growing with each passing game. He's improved massively as a scorer, and he's becoming more consistent as a three-point threat (he's averaging 13.8 points on 36.8 percent shooting from deep). He's only 21 years old as well.

So as inconsistent as he is on a nightly basis, and as lacking as his other stats may be, the potential there is tantalizing, and teams with contending aspirations would always want tall, lengthy wings like him around to complement their more offensive-oriented guards.

However, there is a chance that Buzelis' potential may be getting overvalued. He's a good young player, but will he be anything more than a complementary piece for a Bulls team that needs a legitimate franchise cornerstone to be a winning team?

There's a possibility that Buzelis tops out at 18 points a night to go along with eight rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game on 49/37/88 shooting splits. That makes him a very good third option for the Bulls. But this Chicago squad, time and time again, has needed a top-15 player at least to become more than anything than first-round playoff fodder.

Now, whether Davis is that star or not is another debate entirely. Giving up Buzelis for Davis feels iffy at best, especially when Davis is on the wrong side of the aging curve.

If the star player in question is younger and has far fewer risks associated with him, then the Bulls should feel more comfortable in giving Buzelis up. But for Davis, this feels like a short-sighted move that could end up being very disastrous if the 10-time All-Star cannot stay healthy the way he's done so far in his stint for the Mavericks.

But it takes talent to acquire talent, and Buzelis will be the one the Mavs will be targeting. He and Cooper Flagg could form a formidable duo on the wing — two lengthy and rangy defenders who can attack the rim relentlessly and wreak havoc on both ends of the floor.

The loss of Noa Essengue, the Bulls' most recent first-round pick, could also prove to be a disaster. But at this point, Essengue is so far away from contributing, and acquiring Davis means that Chicago is pivoting towards a more aggressive win-now stance, leaving no room on the roster for the raw 18-year-old rookie.

Essengue was drafted as a project, but if the Bulls were to be impatient the way they are in this scenario where they're trading away a considerable part of their future to bring in Davis, then it makes sense for him to be included in the trade package if it meant that the Bulls would give up fewer first-round picks to the Mavericks.

Somehow, in this trade scenario, Vucevic remains a Bull — putting Davis in his preferred power forward position. They would complement each other quite well as well; Vucevic is a floor-spacer who can deal with post-up brutes on the defensive end, while Davis can take command of the interior on both ends.

With the Bulls wanting to win big and win now with this hypothetical addition of Davis, they would want to keep Vucevic around. Their starting lineup would now consist of Giddey, White, Patrick Williams (or Kevin Huerter), Davis, and Vucevic — a quintet that should be enough for around 40 to 45 wins in the East.

This trade also allows the Bulls to maintain a few key assets to help them trade for other pieces to supplement their core. Williams and his $18 million a year salary packaged with a first-round pick or two should be a good starting point for another trade, this time for someone like Trey Murphy, an off-ball sniper who can grease the wheels even further for a Bulls team that could take advantage of a wide-open Eastern Conference.