Even biggest trade in Tigers history can't match Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis bombshell

Cleveland Guardians v Detroit Tigers
Cleveland Guardians v Detroit Tigers | Mark Cunningham/GettyImages

On Saturday night, ESPN's Shams Charania dropped an absolute bombshell on the basketball world: the Dallas Mavericks traded five-time NBA All-Star and First-Teamer Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for the similarly decorated (but much older) Anthony Davis. The Utah Jazz, four more players, and a few draft picks were also involved, but the headliners were Doncic and Davis.

It was a shocker for basketball fans, who immediately responded by clowning the Mavericks for giving up their 25-year-old superstar who seemed like he was going to be the future of the franchise, but "explain it in [X other sport] terms" became a popular sentiment for anyone not plugged into basketball.

A couple of baseball comparisons were quickly thrown out — a few based on real trades (the Red Sox-Dodgers deal that sent Mookie Betts to LA) and others, including a hypotheticalMike Trout as Davis, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. as Doncic.

The Tigers might have an imperfect comparison in their history, one of the biggest moves the organization has ever made: trading six players, including Cameron Maybin, to the Florida Marlins for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers. It was stunning back in 2007, but it still might not be as insane as the Doncic deal.

NBA's Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis deal somehow even bigger than Tigers' trade for Miguel Cabrera

Again, it's an imperfect comparison — if Cabrera is the Doncic in this scenario, none of the six players who went from Detroit to Miami in return for him have anything on Davis, a 10-time NBA All-Star.

Andrew Miller eventually became a star reliever after the trade, with his career spanning 16 years and five more teams after the Marlins before he retired after the 2021 season; Dallas Trahern never cracked the majors; Frankie de la Cruz retired after 2011 with just 32 major league innings logged; Burke Badenhop went out after 2015; and Mike Rabelo was out of the league after the 2008 season with the Marlins. Maybin experienced a brief resurgence with the Yankees in 2019, but he retired after the 2021 season with just 33 plate appearances on the year with the Mets.

Of course, we all know how things went with Cabrera, a Triple Crown winner, two-time MVP, eight-time All-Star in Detroit, and Hall of Fame shoo-in on an eight-year, $152.3 million contract extension signed in 2008.

It's still a mammoth, franchise-defining deal for Detroit, but the Doncic-Davis trade still kind of blows it out of the water. It's likely that the Mavericks are going to fare better with Davis than the Marlins did with those six guys, most of whom have now faded into obscurity, but parting with a young, generational talent will be tough to swallow.

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