Apr 8, 2025; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic (77) reacts after being ejected from a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder during the second half at Paycom Center. Mandatory Credit: Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images / Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images
“I understand why they [the fans] would be shocked initially, but I do believe that we’ve positioned ourselves to win now and win in the future.”
That’s what Dallas Mavericks General Manager Nico Harrison said in Cleveland, Ohio, the afternoon following the most shocking trade in NBA history. He had just sent 25-year-old Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for 31-year-old Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and a 2029 first-round pick. Despite coming off a run to the NBA Finals, Harrison thought trading a megastar before he even reached his prime would help the team now and in the future.
A team built to “win now” has now missed the playoffs entirely after falling to the Memphis Grizzlies in the Play-In Tournament on Friday night. Their defense was non-existent in the first half, and despite Anthony Davis having a phenomenal game scoring the ball and finishing with 40 points, no one else really stepped up around him because there was no reliable playmaking.
There are things people could blame, and most will point to injuries. Davis rushed back from an injury he suffered with the Lakers to try and ease some of the heat around Harrison, but that backfired, and he went down in the third quarter of his Dallas debut, costing him much of the rest of the regular season. Even when he returned, he was clearly laboring.
Dereck Lively II already had a stress fracture in his ankle at the time of the trade, Daniel Gafford sprained his MCL the game after Davis went down, Caleb Martin hardly played after being traded for Quentin Grimes due to a hip strain, and Kyrie Irving tore his ACL in early March. But, do you know who could’ve helped make up for all of this? Luka Doncic.
Doncic had a calf strain at the time of the trade, but once he returned to action as a Laker, he averaged 28.2 PPG, 8.1 RPG, and 7.5 APG while pushing through injuries and the emotions of being traded. That helped lift the Lakers to be the third seed in the West while the Mavericks were falling down the standings. He’s the type of player who can elevate all of those around him and generate easy shots. If he can take Reggie Bullock and Dwight Powell as starters to the Western Conference Finals, he could’ve helped Klay Thompson and Naji Marshall win some games in the regular season once he returned from injury.
But Nico Harrison didn’t like Doncic. No matter what he says in the media, he let his personal feelings about a player get in the way of business and drove him to make the worst trade in NBA history. If that isn’t grounds for his termination from his post with the Mavericks, the franchise will quickly fall into irrelevancy, because they don’t have much of a future either.
Irving won’t return from injury until January, according to the latest reports, and he’ll be a 33-year-old smaller guard coming off a major knee injury. There’s no guarantee he’ll be the same player once he returns. Dallas also gave up control of their first-round picks from 2027 to 2030 in an effort to surround Luka Doncic with the best talent possible, which they did. They just made the NBA Finals last season and improved the roster this year. Had they just stuck with the status quo, they would have gotten healthy at the right time and had the pieces necessary to go on another run. Instead, they became a team with no playmaking and no shot-creation. And that’s a recipe for disaster.
READ MORE: Anthony Davis, Ja Morant have heated exchange in Mavericks-Grizzlies
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