Stunned Tiafoe breaks down 'craziest trade in the history of the NBA'

Frances Tiafoe is one of the biggest basketball fans on the ATP Tour. The American nearly always can be seen at tournaments wearing National Basketball Association jerseys and has become friends with the sport’s biggest stars.

So it is safe to say the No. 18 player in the PIF ATP Rankings was stunned on Saturday evening when he learned about the blockbuster trade in which Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic was sent to the Los Angeles Lakers. It is fitting that Tiafoe is in Dallas for the Dallas Open.

“I’m at dinner and my man hit me, ‘Yo, you see Luka?' And I'm like, ‘What do you mean did I see Luka? He's hurt’. He said, ‘Nah man, he just got traded’,” Tiafoe said. “So I go straight to IG, everybody hit me. Group chats, everybody hit me like, ‘Yo, Luka, you see Luka?’ I didn't know what to think. I'm with these guys at dinner. I was like, ‘Nah, this can't be real. You ain't going to just have the dude take you to the Finals and he's all-NBA every year, first [team], All Star’.”

Luka to LA?!@FTiafoe breaks it down 🏀 @DALOpenTennis | #DALOpen pic.twitter.com/4FfgxDQLJA

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Doncic will now join LeBron James on the Lakers, while Anthony Davis will play alongside Kyrie Irving on the Mavericks. NBA reporter Shams Charania broke the news on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“When Shams goes up, Shams don't lie. And so when Shams went up, I was like, man, did Shams get hacked?’” Tiafoe wondered. “It's the craziest trade in the history of the NBA. It has to be. It's wild, bro. Bron didn't even know, Luka didn't know, AD didn't know.”

It did not take long for Tiafoe to start thinking about the implications of the trade and how it would impact the league.

“Dallas definitely lost the trade bro and that's just the fact of the matter. I know [Mark] Cuban's gotta be hurting. Shout out Cuban. I know Dirk [Nowitzki] has got to be sick. Shout out Dirk,” Tiafoe said. “But I mean, the league's in a better place when LA has a good team. I believe that. Huge market, all the stars and all that. To have Luka carry that forward for a long time is really smart for that GM there in [Rob] Pelinka.”

Tiafoe, who played in the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, also broke down the on-court dynamic for the Lakers now that Doncic and James are on the same team.

“There needs to be some more trades before the trade deadline. Bron's 40, he’s not going to be playing defence like that. Luka, he can't spell defence. But you've got guys who can get buckets, man,” Tiafoe said. “[Austin] Reaves can come off it a little bit. Luka is going to be on it. Bron can do less now, which is big. You've got [Jaxson] Hayes and you've got [Dorian] Finney-Smith, so we'll see what ends up happening with those guys.

“But now they just need bigs, and once they've got guys who can play D... With Luka with you, he's a walking bucket.... Playing with Bron, the IQ for both of them, like, whoo, that's must-watch TV. Whoo. in LA? What?!”