Saturday night, ESPN reported the Dallas Mavericks were trading their 5-time All-NBA 25-year-old superstar Luka Doncic for another, slightly older, superstar, Anthony Davis (and others). The whole sports world went crazy.
In the first two days of this week, heated discussions about the “Luka trade” cropped up in every one of my classes, across a larger-than-typical range of participants. Even my girlfriend, who had never heard the name Luka Doncic before Saturday, proudly asked me, “You heard about the Luka trade?”
I have, and my opinion might run counter to popular wisdom.
Yes, the Mavericks likely could have gotten better draft picks and more money had they shopped Doncic around during the off-season. Or they could have just re-signed their best player and generational talent who led their team to an NBA Finals last year. But clearly they didn’t think they could have success with the former or latter. That’s what makes this trade so fascinating, they did this guy dirty—a backroom deal between two GMs with a longstanding relationship that not even Lebron (LeGM) knew about.
This trade is a rebuke of Doncic and his ability to lead a team. Sure, they would’ve had to sign him to the most expensive contract in basketball, but if a guy who averaged a near triple-double last year isn’t worth paying—who is? The easiest, and most cathartic, explanation is that Nico Harrison, the GM, is horrible at his job. This is the wrong take. The people on the admin side of a franchise are professionals too, and we should assume a framework of rational decision making. Harrison has taken big risks for the organization before, like trading for Kyrie Irving in 2023, that have paid off. The resulting conclusion; there were deep-seated problems when it came to the idea of Doncic’s tenure with the team.
Post-trade, rumors about the franchise’s discontent have been cropping up everywhere. On social media, users are attributing almost mythic levels of symbolic significance to videos like this one showing the VP of Mavs operations snatching a post-victory beer from Luka’s hands. Doncic’s lack of physical fitness has also been a significant storyline throughout his career. Add onto that a tendency to blame refs while slacking on defense and you have a basis for why the Mavs lost faith. This season alone the Mavs have paid Doncic $14 million for sitting on the bench with an injury the organization seems to blame him for (in his defense, he has one of the highest usage rates in the league).
All of this points to the idea that the Mavs were concerned about having their own version of Zion Williamson and they decided to bail early.
In regards to other rumors circulating online, speculating that this trade was part of a Mavs ownership plot to influence favorable policy for their casino and betting interests by tanking the team and threatening a move, I don’t buy it. Although, it wouldn’t be a surprise to find out Harrison came to resent Doncic’s ‘athletic philosophy’ and saw him as undedicated despite his offensive production.
“But they made the FINALS last year!!” “Anthony Davis is old and injury prone!”
Anyone who watched the Finals last year knows the Mavs were a far cry away from winning last year. The Celtics went up 3-0 on a five-seed Mavs team and cruised to an easy championship. This season, off-season moves, like trading for a washed Klay Thompson, were not paying off.
Anthony Davis is also having two of the healthiest back-to-back seasons of his career, playing 75 games last season and on track to hit a similar number averaging almost 26 points and 12 rebounds a game at great shooting percentages. He has three to four years left of elite basketball.
The truth is that the Mavs look good—really good. With Davis, Washington, Gafford and others they have an incredibly strong defense. On top of this, Davis and Kyrie are two vets who stand to work extremely well together, emulating the Lebron-Davis connection with the added benefit of Davis actually getting to play his preferred position, the four spot. The Lakers on the other hand have two redundant strong-offense-but-weak-defense players in Lebron and Doncic—and no center.
If you want further indication as to what these teams will look like, at least in the short term, watch the two stars’ respective press interviews following the trade. One is clearly distraught and disillusioned, the other has been around the league too long to be phased and is ready to get to work.
But championships aren’t the only measure of a successful franchise. The most valuable metric will always be revenue, which requires a fanbase. In just two days the Mavs have lost a million Instagram followers. Fans feel betrayed.
“I guess that’s what matters is that one chip, but honestly I would’ve rather just gotten to watch Luka ball out with the Mavs, so much of the Mavs was Luka,” Harrison Shunk, my friend and avid Mavs fan, lamented to me Tuesday night. His pain runs deep, and while he hopes for the best, at this point everything feels a bit tainted.
While I believe the Mavs stand to have major playoff success in the next few years, it probably won’t have longevity, and the fans might struggle to enjoy it—after all, generational superstars like Doncic don’t come around often.
