One Week Later: The Luka Doncic Trade
On ending joy and the dumbest of inside jobs
Not all my updates and posts are this long, but given what this story was, there was just a lot to talk about, even after all this time.
Also, I wrote a list of all the dumb things about this trade that I’d like to update. Send me what you think needs to be added to the list on email or hit me on social media.
It’s been a week since the Mavericks changed NBA history.
We’re really no closer to understanding why Nico Harrison pulled the trade that he did. Was it arrogance? Stupidity?
Was there something nefarious happening? Was Harrison in league with Pelinka? Did the league call down from on high because of the ratings? Was Harrison under a spell? Blackmail?
How could this happen?
In the rush to create content, I didn’t get to comment on all the great reporting and content around the trade, so I wanted to take the time to do that, even as we continue to ask the very simple question…
Why?
But before that, let’s talk about the damage done.
THE END OF JOY
In just about any other situation, I’d have to give it to you, but instead, what you’ve done is rob me of my joy in the Dallas Mavericks. A team I’ve loved with my whole heart since I was 15, a team I’ve marked moments in my life with, a team that’s part of my personality, you’ve taken that joy away. And in its place is rage. Rage at you. And it’s not going anywhere, it’s here to stay.
From “An Open Letter To Dallas Mavericks GM Nico Harrison” | Mavs Moneyball
This is going to go down as one of the most read things in the history of Mavs Moneyball. Do you know how long that site has been around? Do you know how much it must have connected to draw that kind of audience?
I keep thinking about this part of it, 1. because I really do try and be empathetic and 2. because fan behavior fascinates me. I studied social psychology in college, so the way that groups of people think and act on those thoughts is extremely my jam.
There’s so much pain in fandom. Your team comes up short or worse, your chosen superstar comes up short. Mighty Casey has struck out, etc. Your team fails to win the lottery. Your team fails to make the playoffs. Your team loses a star in free agency.
But what the Mavericks did was so much worse.
I can disagree with Standom, and I do. I was an Alonzo Mourning fan growing up, and even though I followed him from Charlotte to Toronto to Miami, something was lost when he left the Hornets.
I feel like you should love a team that is representative of your community and the fans you share something common with instead of following a player. There should be something that causes bonds beyond highlights.
But truthfully, who cares what I think? Mavericks fandom had morphed into Luka fandom, just as Nuggets fandom has morphed into Jokic fandom.
Let me put it this way, if you asked Mavericks fans if they’d rather win a title but Luka played badly and Kyrie was the best player and Luka was genuinely not responsible for the title, or lose in the Finals with Luka in a blaze of glory, they’d at least have to think about it.
I’ve thought about this line from Henderson a bit:
“You’ve tried to ruin the game we love because you don’t understand why we’re even here. It’s not just championships. It’s moments and memories and happiness and distress and more complicated than you realize.”
Nico Harrison is a businessman; that’s how he got the job. And part of business has become, across our entire country, the wanton destruction of the heart in pursuit of the edge or profit. It’s not enough to be good at what you do and make money; you have to make more, the most, all of it.
Even if you could justify the basketball side of the trade, which you can’t even though I think Dallas matches up really well with all of the West contenders and could find themselves in the Finals again, you can’t justify the heart side of this.
You took something from people, and you did it in a way they can’t get it back. OKC fans were destroyed when KD left, but hey could turn to anger at him and determination to rally around Russ and the team. They moved from there to the CP3 team and then Shai’s team. They had a natural healing process.
Mavs fans have nowhere to go with their grief except, well, towards Nico. Hence the protests in Dallas.
You could say nothing was accomplished at the gathering. You might think it was silly to even show up, and it’s fine if you do. After a week of watching the cavalcade of takes, stories and revelations the trade spawned, those who did show up and raise their voices just needed a space to be mad together. To be sad together. To see how other fans were processing the most jarring news in team history. Because none of us individually knows exactly the right way to process and grieve what is a very real loss, even if it came right before a very real win on the court just a few hundred feet away.
From Mavs Moneyball
“And I don't think Nico understands the assignment. I don't want a GM to be brave. I want the player that I like to remain on the team to overcome these things. It really is, like, why do you watch sports? I watch sports because it tells a story about life. And the story that was told about life here is like, 'Oh, we're just going to take everything nice away from you.' It's awful."
Even if you take the worst possible view of Doncic — which isn’t hard for me to do — you just can’t justify doing this to the fans.
I do think Doncic whines at the officials instead of getting back and doesn’t come into camp in shape, and I do think he wants to play a ball-dominant style even if he’d finally started to get it last year and this season. And even then, I could never trade Doncic because what is the point for the fans?
They had made their feelings known: he was their guy. You don’t get to overrule the fans on this one. This isn’t paying a beloved veteran into his late 30s. This isn’t paying to keep the beloved hustle role player. This is the franchise icon, whether you like it or not.
And all of that assumes you’re right about how good he is and what will happen, which there is very little evidence to support. All of those things I said about him? All the criticism I’ve lobbed? It all came with the understanding that, in time, he would move past it because that’s what great players do. Documenting the failures and limitations of stars is part of what makes their ultimate triumph so satisfying.
There’s such an overwhelming feeling of grief from Dallas fans, with nowhere for it to go. It’s hard not to feel like it echoes across where everyone is in the world right now, screaming at the top of our lungs without it changing anything about our situations at all.
THE DUMBEST INSIDE JOB
Before joining the Dallas Mavericks as general manager in 2021, Harrison spent two decades at Nike. Harrison worked with all of the NBA’s best players at Nike, including Michael Jordan and LeBron James, and he also played a role in Kobe Bryant’s decision to leave $8 million on the table at Adidas for a move to Nike in the early 2000s.
This is why Harrison has such a good relationship with Rob Pelinka. Prior to signing a five-year deal to become general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers in 2017, Pelinka famously represented Kobe Bryant for the majority of his 20-year NBA career.
This isn’t some ground-breaking revelation. Everyone knows relationships are important. My point is that a bond is created when you spend twenty years building a billion-dollar brand, and it sheds light on how this deal eventually got finalized.
This part keeps rattling around my brain.
Regardless of why, how, or for what purpose this happened, I think there’s a lesson for NBA owners to take going forward.
You can’t hire anyone with Lakers connections.
Anyone.
At all.
They can’t have worked in LA and done business with the Lakers. They can’t have played there. They can’t have played there and then coached there and then been an executive there, like Jerry West with Memphis when he gifted the Lakers Pau Gasol.
You just can’t trust them not to benefit the franchise that so many seem to feel deserves to sit on a throne above the rest.
The man negotiated only with a team that had so few assets they had frustrated LeBron James by not improving the team. And that’s where you went with your icon.
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