The Dallas Mavericks have to win a championship, and soon. After trading away a perennial All-NBA performer in Luka Doncic on the cusp of entering his prime years, the Mavs have shortened their apparent title window considerably on their own accord.
The Mavs had concerns about Doncic’s conditioning, an issue they reportedly believe got worse this season as Doncic had played in just 22 of 49 games prior to being traded, currently recovering from a calf strain suffered on Christmas. With Doncic eligible for a $345 million supermax extension this summer, Dallas felt the clock was ticking on their chances to avoid a potential disaster by paying him that much money with no guarantee he would remain healthy. Had they refused to put that offer on the table, it would’ve almost assuredly led to a trade request. Had they put the offer on the table, he would have signed it but they wouldn’t have had a guarantee that he would stay healthy or that would not do what others (like Damian Lillard and Bradley Beal) have post-supermax signing and request a trade.
Those hypotheticals that Mavs general manager Nico Harrison seemingly couldn’t get out of his head led him to not only trade Doncic, but keep conversations so quiet that he did not make calls around the league to maximize his value. It seems obvious that Harrison realized this would be a wildly unpopular move, not just with fans but within the organization as a whole, but he is insistent this was the right path forward for the franchise. Perhaps his move will be looked back on as bold rather than crazy as a result of a Dallas championship run helmed by two of LeBron James’ former co-stars, Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving. Pairing the two together on a team makes plenty of sense in a vacuum, but coming off of a Finals run with Doncic last season there is nothing short of a championship that will make this trade look like a success.
Even then, there are Mavs fans so hurt by this trade that they might never fully embrace this team the same way. This is a franchise that built an identity on loyalty to its stars over the last two-plus decades, with Dirk Nowitzki spending a record 21 years in Dallas. The Mavs only won one title in that time frame, but to their fans, that title meant something more because of how they built to it. There was so much pain, so many disappointments and close calls, that when they finally won — and in the manner they did by slaying every giant in the league — that one ring felt bigger to the Mavs faithful.
Now, that identity has been completely scrapped by new ownership and a new front office regime. This is a franchise that somehow managed to draft a guy that looked to be a true franchise cornerstone right as Nowitzki was getting ready to hang it up. He was seven seasons in to what fans hoped would be another 21, and while they hadn’t reached the mountaintop yet, Mavs fans had reason to believe in the climb, knowing how much sweeter it feels once you finally reach the summit. That pursuit has now been cut short for a bunch of reasons that don’t make much sense to anyone, especially Mavs fans.
Being concerned about Doncic’s long-term durability is valid, but trading him for Anthony Davis, a fantastic player six years his elder with a worse history of injuries and absences than Doncic, is tough logic to follow. Taking a team that just went to the Finals and, when healthy this year, looked as good if not better and then trading away your best player under the guise of wanting to “win now” also doesn’t pass the smell test. Highlighting the long-term concerns of Doncic’s durability and then shortening your title window considerably by building around a 31 and 32-year-old (with the latter being eligible for free agency this summer) likewise makes little sense.
Nothing about what Dallas did adds up, and it has made everyone wonder what was going on behind the scenes that we are all missing. We may never know, but what the Mavs fail to understand in this situation is by trying to anticipate a messy situation, they’ve created, at best, an equally messy one where they appear entirely at fault.
Dallas’ leadership group seems to not comprehend how fandom works, and why perception matters so much when it comes to these kinds of situations. Fans don’t care about whether a guy comes into camp out of shape or misses a few games when he has career averages of 28/8/8 and has always looked pudgy. You’re not going to get them on your side by floating that Doncic was heavier this year or that his commitment was questionable when they just saw him lead you to the NBA Finals. And you will never, ever convince fans a beloved star who has been with a team his whole life will actually ask out of town.
That last piece has driven fans crazy for years, and it’s usually folks in the media that bear the brunt of the anger. No matter whether there’s truly smoke or whispers about them, until that trade request gets filed, fans aren’t turning on their guy. The Mavs may have had good reason to be concerned about Doncic asking out, but they would’ve been far better off in the court of public opinion (which definitely matters when you’re a sports team dependent on fans spending money) making him be the one to make that decision. Instead, they are the ones who ran the beloved star out of town, allowing him to pen a touching statement to the fans where he gets to say he thought he’d be in Dallas for his whole career and ensure that every time he comes back he gets a rousing ovation rather than the boos and vitriol that greet a guy who requests a trade.
Beyond the optics, I think the Mavs invented a scenario where they would’ve been backed in a corner that wouldn’t have really existed. Doncic on a $345 million extension, even with conditioning concerns and even if he had some injury issues, would still be extremely tradable in the near future. A guy who makes five consecutive All-NBA first teams, averages almost a triple-double per game, and leads a team on a Finals run is still going to garner plenty of interest around the league when he’s in the midst of his prime. I have a hard time believing that a similar deal to what they got from the Lakers wouldn’t have been out there, and they very likely could’ve gotten more by opening it up to the highest bidder.
Instead, they will play out this season hoping desperately that Irving and Davis find a rhythm quickly, the supporting cast adjusts just as fast, they get healthy at the right time, and can make a run through a very competitive Western Conference to make good on title-or-bust expectations without the best roster in the league. That’s a really tough situation to be in, but what I cannot get my head around is the fact that they willingly put themselves here. No one was forcing them to do this now. No one was forcing them to negotiate exclusively with the Lakers. And yet, here we are, with a team actively choosing to play the game on the highest difficulty possible.
As the old saying goes, winning fixes everything. However, in Dallas, there definition of that is now just winning a championship. There are no more moral victories for a conference finals appearance that make you feel on the precipice of a breakthrough. No more “well, we’ve got time to figure it out” if an injury derails a run. There is just winning a championship, which is incredibly difficult to do.
They are in one of the hardest positions to be in in all of sports, purposefully and by choice, because they imagined a world where they’d end up in a different one later.
(@concertleaks) 
