My Thoughts On The Mavericks
5 min readQuick disclaimer: this post is longer than most of my analyses and is largely a criticism of the leadership and teambuilding of the Dallas Mavericks
As you may have heard, the Dallas Mavericks have made one of the most shocking trades in NBA history, arguably in American sports history, when they traded their 25-year-old franchise cornerstone Luka Doncic for older star Anthony Davis, young role player Max Christie, and only one 1st round pick (which is likely going to be in the mid-20s due to the fact that they now have Luka Doncic for likely the next 10ish years). The whole league was in shock, which is not something that happens often, and there were so many questions from the fans, players, and even members of rival front offices. Why was the return so small? Why wasn’t anyone else made aware of the trade status of Luka? Why did the Mavericks make this trade in the first place?
The trade is so astounding due to who Luka is. He is easily a top-5 player in the world who led his team to the NBA Finals about 8 months ago. He’s not even 26 yet, still yet to hit his basketball prime. In his first 6 complete seasons (ages 19-25, for reference), he has made All-NBA First Team in five of those years, finished top 10 in MVP voting in 5 of those years (top 5 in three of those years), is one of 10 players to score 70 or more in a game and sits at #4 in most points in a game, and is currently averaging the third most points per game in NBA history behind only Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. He is putting up historical numbers before reaching his theoretical basketball prime.
Management Perspective
To be clear, the problem isn’t necessarily due to the players received for Luka. Anthony Davis is, while injury-prone (more on that later), still arguably a top-10 player in the league. There are nights when he is the best player on the court, and often enough, he looks like the best defensive player in the world. Max Christie is a good young 3-and-D wing who fits into just about any scheme (though I will admit, as someone who has loved and watched a lot of Michigan State basketball from the 2018-19 season onwards, I’m probably higher on Christie than most NBA fans).
However, the fact that Luka Doncic was traded for just the aforementioned players and a singular first rounder is simply absurd. Had the Mavericks opened up trade conversations to the rest of the league, there would have definitely been a better offer somewhere out there that would have still allowed the Mavericks to compete (which is the supposed reasoning that GM Nico Harrison gave for trading away the second-best player in Mavericks history for Anthony Davis).
Not only that, the way that the front office and leadership of the Mavericks handled the trade has been extremely disappointing. Harrison and team Governor Patrick Dumont have been very petty, making constant jabs at Luka about his weight and work ethic. Arguably the most disrespectful thing was Dumont commenting on work ethic and saying that he wants his players to have the work ethic of players such as Kobe (ok), Michael Jordan (great), Larry Bird (interesting choice, but fine), and Shaq.
Shaquille O’Neal.
The same Shaquille O’Neal who has himself stated in response to direct questioning about his work ethic in a 2024 interview on DraftKings’ Point Game: “My arrogant response to that is: One, work harder for who? Work harder for who, who gonna stop me anyway… And my other response is: I don’t have to work that hard, see what I’m saying… I don’t have to work that hard to do what I need to do.” Not that Shaq was not an amazing player and a top 15, arguably top 10 player of all time, but the fact that Dumont chose to rave about the work ethic of someone who relied almost solely on pure talent and not someone whose work ethic is widely praised is a serious disrespect to everyone involved, especially Mavericks fans. Especially Dirk Nowitzki, who would have been a real and phenominal example. If Dumont had even mentioned Dirk, there might be some level of empathy to be gained, and it could help in the attempt to get fans on the same page with the trade. Instead, he disrespected the already disgruntled fanbase of the team that he only recently purchased.
Team Perspective
The roster of the Mavericks has only gotten worse and worse since the trade itself, which is somewhat to be expected when you trade away your franchise player; however, it’s gotten worse and worse nearly every day. Anthony Davis got injured after only 3 quarters of his debut game. Derrick Lively was already hurt, and Daniel Gafford suffered a knee injury shortly thereafter. Jaden Hardy got hurt a couple weeks ago, Olivier-Maxence Prosper was forced to undergo season-ending surgery recently, P.J. Washington has been in and out of the lineup with one injury or another, and, the icing on the injury cake, Kyrie Irving, the primary ballhandler and only consistent creator on the team, tore his ACL last week. Not to say that Kyrie’s injury wouldn’t have happened if Luka was still a Maverick, but there is a direct correlation with increased playing time (Kyrie was playing some of the most minutes per game in the league since the Luka trade) leads to increased injury risk. Just a few short weeks, and the Mavericks’ season is already over.
On the bright side, Max Christie and Naji Marshall have each looked phenomenal defensively, and each have had flashes of good creation, both with self-creation and playmaking. Unfortunately, that is where most of the good parts of the roster end. The team has lost 5 of their last 6 games as of my writing of this article, and it looks like the team is only going to continue to slide. They are currently only 2.5 wins ahead of the Suns, and there is at least a chance that the Mavs are pushed out of the play-in tournament. Not the ideal scenario for a team trying to make “win-now” moves.
This trade has just been a mess for the Mavericks, and I don’t see this getting better anytime soon. Hey, maybe Nico Harrison will trade Klay, P.J. Washington, Gafford, and Hardy for Kevin Durant in the offseason. Who knows?