I am going to speak from the heart in this post. Despite not being a Dallas Mavericks fan, they are a team I generally enjoy watching more than most teams, and that is because of Luka Doncic. The Slovenian star who fell into the Mavericks laps in the 2018 NBA draft. He was a star the moment he stepped onto the court, and has been one of the best players in the NBA for years. Last season was his best year yet, putting up incredible statistics and leading the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA finals. While they did not end up winning the championship, it was very obvious to me that this team was going to be in the contenders conversation for a while. Luka is just entering his prime, and they have managed to build a really good team around him. The future was very bright for the Dallas Mavericks.

That is until last night, where the Mavericks made one of the most unexpected decisions in professional sports history. They traded Luka. The star that carried them to the playoffs and to the finals last season. The star who genuinely seemed happy in Dallas and wanted to spend his career playing there. I didn’t believe it at first, like most people, but it unfortunately turned out to be true. They broke the hearts of their fans and traded Luka to the team fans of all other teams and basketball in general would never want to see him on, the Lakers. Surely they received a generational haul for him right? Surely they set themselves up for the future with lord of draft picks and really good players right? Wrong. They got Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and ONE first round pick. This is an absolutely pitiful return for a top three player in the NBA. They could’ve gotten the world, but chose not to.

It got so much worse when we learned why they decided to trade Luka. They were worried about his conditions and didn’t want to pay him the money he would ask for because of it. This is an absolutely ridiculous reason to trade Luka. I’m not going to act like conditioning isn’t a concern for him, but he has played in at least 65 games every season in his career except for one, where he still played in 61 games. Yes, the conditioning is a concern, but he still has a track record for playing in the majority of games in a season during his career, and he was still playing at an MVP level before he got hurt this year despite supposedly having gained weight. His conditioning was absolutely not a reason to trade him, especially considering the player in return, Anthony Davis, has had his own fair share of injury issues throughout his career. Also, this “defense wins championship” stuff isn’t necessarily untrue, but should NOT be your explanation for why you decided to trade Luka Doncic for AD.

And you know what the most ridiculous parts about this is? The way Dallas handled the whole thing. It wasn’t the Lakers who contacted Dallas about trading for Luka. They called the Lakers and OFFERED LUKA DONCIC TO THEM!!! He didn’t request a trade or give any indication he wanted out, yet they still were the ones who initiated this trade. AND THEY DIDNT TELL LUKA THAT THIS MIGHT HE A POSSIBILITY!! He reportedly learned the news of the trade basically when we did, which is an absolutely classless act by Nico Harrison.

This is the worst trade in NBA history on the Mavericks side. They are still going to be a very good team, but they undoubtedly got worse and shortened their championship window significantly. It’s absolutely ridiculous. The most unimaginable horrible decision I’ve ever seen a front office make. Nico Harrison should be fired immediately, and I’d honestly boycott the team if I were a Mavericks fan if that doesn’t happen. This is an awful, horrible, despicable trade made by Harrison that will go down as the worst trade in NBA history for the Mavericks unless there is something seriously wrong with Luka that we don’t know about for some reason. I’m in awe of how stupid this trade is for the Mavericks. Anyways, rant over, time to go continue questioning reality cus this happening should never have happened in this universe.