Revisiting Mavericks Trade For Knicks’ Kristaps Porzingis

Prior to the 2019 trade deadline, Kristaps Porzingis was traded alongside a handful of other players from the New York Knicks to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for the promising Dennis Smith Jr. and two future first-round picks. This trade was just finalized this year, as the final first-round pick didn’t convey until the 2024 NBA Draft. Now that it’s fully completed, did anybody win this trade?

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The Mavericks traded for Porzingis, who was sitting out the year as he recovered from ACL surgery, because they thought he could be a potential long-term fit next to budding superstar Luka Doncic. It may have been Doncic’s rookie season, but his elite upside was evident from the moment he put on a Dallas uniform. They also received Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Courtney Lee as salary fillers.

In exchange, the Knicks received Dennis Smith Jr., who had finished 5th in Rookie of the Year voting the year prior, but he was being pushed to the side in Dallas in favor of Doncic. They also received aging veterans Wesley Matthews, who they’d waive following the trade, and DeAndre Jordan with the two first-round picks.

Porzingis was productive in Dallas, averaging 20 PPG and 8.8 RPG in his 134 games with the Mavs, but his availability was an issue. In his two full seasons with the Mavs, 2019-20 and 20-21, Porzingis played 100 of a possible 147 possible regular-season games and three of the six postseason games in the bubble. He would “play” in all seven games of the 2021 playoffs, but he only averaged 13.1 PPG and was clearly upset with his role.

He’d be salary dumped in 2022 to the Washington Wizards for Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans, leaving his time with the Mavs as mostly disappointing. He’s gone on to win a championship with the Boston Celtics this past year over Dallas, but injuries have remained a constant theme with him.

The throw-ins from that trade ended up having some strong moments in a Mavericks uniform, though. Courtney Lee spent the last two seasons of his career in Dallas before retiring. Trey Burke started playoff games for the Mavs, scoring 25 points in Game 4 of the opening round of the 2020 bubble playoffs. And Tim Hardaway Jr. spent six seasons with the Mavs, mostly in a sixth-man role, before he was dumped to the Detroit Pistons this summer in order to create space for Klay Thompson.

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All in all, it wasn’t a great return for the Mavs, given they gave up control over tradeable first-round picks for half a decade. But looking back on it, the Mavs really didn’t give up that much. De’Andre Jordan was starting to look washed in his short time with the Mavs, and that only got worse as he bounced from the Knicks to the Nets and is now a veteran leader on the Nuggets bench. Wesley Matthews followed a similar path, bouncing from a couple of games with the Knicks to the Pacers to the Bucks to the Lakers, then back to the Bucks before playing a few games for the Hawks last year. He was never the same player he was in Portland before he tore his Achilles, even if he had productive years in Dallas.

Then there’s Dennis Smith Jr. He once looked like the next great athletic guard, but he flamed out quickly, having played for the Pistons, Trail Blazers, Hornets, and Nets since playing for the Knicks. He’s carved out a role as a defensive athletic guard, but he remains unsigned for the 2024-25 season, and he’s not the player people thought he could be.

The two first-round picks were a 2021 unprotected first and a 2023 top-ten protected pick. The 2021 pick conveyed and became Keon Johnson, who was flipped to the LA Clippers for Quentin Grimes (now a Maverick, he was used to acquire Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks from the Pistons), and a 2024 second-round pick, who became Jonathan Mogbo.

The 2023 pick didn’t convey originally as the Mavericks unashamedly tanked the final few games of the 2023 season in an effort to keep their pick, and it worked. They landed the 10th pick of the draft, then traded back to 12th while offloading the salary of Davis Bertans to land Dereck Lively II, who was vital to the Mavs’ success as a rookie. The pick rolled over to 2024, one of the weakest draft classes in recent memory, and the Knicks would draft Kyshawn George 24th overall before he was sent to the Wizards for Dillon Jones, the 26th overall pick, and then he was flipped to the Thunder for five future second-round picks.

It’s safe to say neither team won this trade. The Knicks got Porzingis’ upcoming extension off of their table, but they mostly struggled in the years after the trade and didn’t turn the first-round picks into anything useful. The Mavericks thought they had a co-star for Luka Doncic but had to dump his salary for two other bloated salaries. Both teams have since recovered from this trade, as the Knicks won 50 games last season thanks to former Maverick Jalen Brunson, while the Mavericks acquired Kyrie Irving from the Nets for pennies on the dollar and went to the NBA Finals last season.

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