On June 21, 2018, the Dallas Mavericks traded for the draft rights of Luka Dončić, a 19-year-old from Slovenia. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Franchise cornerstone Dirk Nowtizki was going into his final season, and the idea that the Mavericks could seamlessly transition from franchise player to franchise player excited the city of Dallas. It should have been a move that brought Dallas glory over the next decade plus.
Dončić somehow surpassed the lofty expectations put onto his shoulders. He won the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award, and in his next five seasons, was selected to the NBA All-Star team and 1st Team All-NBA each time. In 2024, Dončić led the entire league in scoring and was a MVP finalist as the Mavericks silenced doubters en route to the NBA Finals, where they would ultimately come short against the Boston Celtics. It was clear that we were witnessing a generational talent, and he belonged to Dallas.
On Feb. 1, ESPN’s NBA insider Shams Charania reported that Dončić had been traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for star big-man Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick. When I first saw the trade, I was convinced that Charania’s social media accounts were hacked and this was fake; however, as others confirmed the trade, it was clear that Dallas sports fans’ worst nightmare was a reality: Dončić was no longer a Maverick.
This trade is arguably the most shocking event in sports history. The Lakers, the biggest brand in the NBA, were gifted a 25-year-old generational talent, essentially guaranteeing the team being serious contenders for the next decade. For the Mavericks, it is one of the biggest blunders in sports history and a betrayal to the city of Dallas. The trade is terrible not only from a basketball perspective but also destroys the Mavericks’ reputation in the league and betrays their fanbase.
The problem on the court
Immediately following news of the trade, Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison claimed that the trade gave the Mavericks a better chance to win a championship now, expressing that “defense wins championships.”
First of all, let’s reestablish the fact that the Dallas Mavericks were in the NBA Finals not even 8 months before this trade while having Dončić as their best player! This was no fluke, as 2 years prior they made the Western Conference Finals. It is baffling to even consider that trading a 25-year-old superstar, who is entering his prime and has already led you to multiple deep playoff runs, for another star, who is a worse overall player, is a win-now move.
To be fair, Dončić is an inconsistent defender and Davis is a much better defender overall. But the Mavericks should not be worrying about defense. After the 2024 trade deadline, the Mavericks had the fourth-best defensive rating while Dončić was playing well over 30 minutes a game. In those 2024 finals, the opinion held by many, including ESPN analyst Brian Windhorst, is that they lost because the Boston Celtics continuously attacked Dončić on defense. In reality, the Celtics’ offense had their worst performance of the playoffs by far. After having a record-setting offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) of 123.2 during the season, the Celtics did not dominate offensively, with four out of the five games being well under their normal output. The Mavericks lost that series because they were terrible offensively, especially when it came to shooting threes (31.6%). They were held to under 100 points in four out of the five contests, an embarrassing outing in the modern NBA. This was an issue that Mavericks addressed in the offseason by adding players like Klay Thompson, but that no longer matters.
Even if the Mavericks become a defensive nightmare for opposing teams, they have now lost arguably the best playmaker in the NBA. They’ve lost a player who hit threes at a solid clip on high volume and generated the most open threes in the NBA, extremely valuable in a league that has essentially become a “who can make the most threes” contest. While Kyrie Irving is a great player, he has not shown in his 14-year career that he can be the best playmaker on a contender. Below Irving on the depth chart are players I would certainly not trust to lead an offense.
The Mavericks will likely be a really good team in the short-term. They have good players and decent depth. Davis is an amazing player who will certainly have his great moments in Dallas, and it’s sad that he may never be fully embraced by the city. But at the end of the day, they will never know where they could have gone with Dončić.
A damaged reputation
In the days following the trade, more details were released regarding Harrison’s process and motivations. Harrison was the one who called Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka, meaning the Mavericks were actively trying to get rid of Dončić. In Dončić’s introductory press conference, Pelinka essentially said that Harrison wanted this process to remain secret, and that the Lakers kept their word.
It is extremely odd that Harrison did not let the entire NBA know that Dončić was on the market. It would have generated the most intense bidding war in NBA history. According to ESPN insider Tim MacMahon, executives around the league are furious they did not have the opportunity to outbid the Lakers for Dončić. Teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs and Utah Jazz have been stockpiling draft picks in the hope that a player of this caliber becomes available. The secretive trade was a horrible process that executives around the league will remember when it comes to future trades.
And it’s not just executives who will view the Mavericks unfavorably after this move. NBA correspondent Marc Stein reported that Dončić did not want to leave Dallas at all and was completely blindsided by the move. This has been a trend in recent years for the Mavericks, with players like Grant Williams and Seth Curry traded to bottom feeders less than a year into their contracts in 2024. Dončić was eligible for a 5 year, $346 million supermax contract extension in the offseason because of his five consecutive First Team All-NBA selections, which he gave “absolutely” zero indication he would not sign in the upcoming offseason. By trading Dončić away, the Mavericks took away his eligibility for the supermax, costing him well over $100 million. Dončić will not be struggling with $200 million, but players around the league will take note of the fact that the Mavericks have zero sense of loyalty and will mess with your livelihood without thinking twice.
On top of all of this, the team went out of their way to discredit Dončić, leaking that his weight ballooned to over 270 pounds — while rehabbing from an injury — and that he only “fit the culture” but didn’t “add to the culture,” whatever that means. During an interview with Dallas Morning News’ Brad Townsend, Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont essentially said that Dončić was not a hard worker and used players like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Shaquile O’Neal as an example of the types of people the Mavericks want in their organization. This sounds like someone who just Googled “best basketball players of all time.” Not to mention using Shaq, the same player who Kobe Bryant said would’ve had 12 rings if he ever worked hard, as an example of “hard work” is embarrassing. The blatant disrespect given to the Mavericks’ franchise cornerstone of six years is pathetic.
A betrayal to the city of Dallas
Dirk Nowitzki played 21 seasons in the NBA, all of them with the Mavericks. The city was there for his lows and highs and were rewarded with an NBA championship in 2011. Outside of the Mavericks’ home arena, there is a statue of Nowitzki shooting his iconic one-legged fadeaway with the inscription “Loyalty Never Fades Away.”
Trading a 25-year-old superstar who did not want to leave is not loyalty. Blindsiding a player who led you to the NBA Finals while battling all sorts of injuries is not loyalty. Trying to make a player who has never had a negative word said about him by a teammate appear as a lazy team cancer is not loyalty. Slandering a player who has never made a negative statement about the franchise in seven years despite being surrounded with lackluster rosters for multiple seasons is not loyalty. What exactly does loyalty mean to the Dallas Mavericks?
Nowitzki was not in the building for the debut of Davis in a Mavericks jersey on Feb. 8. Instead, he traveled all the way to Los Angeles to witness the debut of Dončić as a Laker on Feb. 10. That is a statement stronger than anything I or anyone else can write.
Dončić is the reason I started watching basketball. As someone who exclusively watched football for the first 15 years of my life, Dončić and the Mavericks gave me the first real playoff success in my life. The Mavericks being good encouraged me to become interested in the other sports around DFW like baseball and hockey. In a city located in football-loving Texas and home to the Dallas Cowboys, the biggest brand in American sports, it was somehow a Slovenia-born basketball player who was the face of the city. And it was ripped away for no good reason.