5 reasons why the Dallas Mavericks were absolutely right to trade Luka Doncic

The Dallas Mavericks made one of the least popular trades in NBA history before the deadline, sending Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a draft pick. While the timing of the transaction was certainly bizarre, we’ll come up with five reasons why Dallas ultimately made the right move to jettison Doncic. All statistics are sourced from Basketball Reference.

It’s not a revelation to say that Luka Doncic’s defense is a huge weakness. Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd was asked during the 2024 NBA Finals about the Boston Celtics’ hunting of Doncic, because they were confident they could score on him. Kidd told Sports Illustrated, “he’s definitely got a bullseye on his chest, so he’s got to be able to guard and understand that we’re there to protect him if he does get beat.”

ESPN’s Tim McMahon said in March 2023 that a scout believed Doncic was “the worst transition defender in the history of basketball.” That’s obviously a scathing criticism of his shortcomings. Even if it may be an exaggeration, Doncic has been repeatedly targeted by other teams and has done little to dispel the idea that he’ll do his part individually.

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Granted, Doncic is one of the best offensive players in NBA history so far in his career, but his lack of defensive chops has put Dallas in a bind. He can almost never be relied on to check the other team’s top perimeter option, which causes a domino effect that Kidd and the team has to adjust to. It’s not an impossible problem to solve, but it has put them in a predicament during big games.

It’s no secret that Mark Cuban was a massive fan of everything Doncic brought to the Mavericks organization. As Sports Business Journal and others captured, Cuban once said years ago that he’d “sooner divorce his wife” than trade Doncic away. However, Cuban is no longer the majority owner of the team, as he sold the controlling stake to the Adelson family late in 2023.

We have to take Cuban at his word with the Doncic loyalty he once proclaimed, since he had undying devotion to Dirk Nowitzki for his stellar NBA career. However, the Adelson’s and general manager Nico Harrison never professed that same level of commitment, even if people believe they should have.

Cuban was a fixture behind the Mavericks bench and in the locker room for many years, but the Adelson’s don’t have that same level of connection to the team. That doesn’t justify trading their best player, but if both Doncic and the Adelsons weren’t on good terms behind the scenes, it would be difficult to fake that over the course of the next five years or more.

It didn’t take long for details about Luka Doncic’s physical shape to come out once the trade was announced. ESPN’s Dave McMenamin reported that he weighed 260 pounds during the early part of the season. Reports came out that he was around 270 pounds after he suffered a calf strain during a game on Christmas Day.

It seems like Dallas had been down this road with Doncic before, and didn’t particularly appreciate his lack of dedication to conditioning. McMenamin reported that Doncic missed five games early this season with a sprained wrist, but that the organization wanted to cover him to give him time to get in shape. This wasn’t the first time they felt the need to do that, according to ESPN.

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There was even a video that went viral last spring which showed Mavs Vice President of Basketball Operations Michael Finley snatching away a beer from Doncic during their celebration to make the NBA Finals. Dallas probably felt that if he wasn’t getting the message on this front through seven NBA seasons, he probably never would. That becomes a more slippery slope as time passes.

Once the shock and awe of the trade is peeled back, there’s an objective case to be made that the current version of the Mavericks is better than the one before the trade. Harrison told Yahoo Sports at a press conference, “We really feel that defense wins championships,” and he went to read off the impressive resume of Anthony Davis.

Kyrie Irving is now the lead maestro of the offense, but it’s a role that he’s certainly qualified to handle. Davis joins a frontline which already included the likes of P.J. Washington, Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively. Lively may not return to the lineup until the playoffs, but those players were huge reasons why Dallas made it to the NBA Finals last year. That area of the team just got even better.

Irving, Davis and Klay Thompson have all won NBA championships in their past, and the Mavericks are banking on their resumes and current skills to get them over the hump. That’s not to say that Doncic won’t ever win a title in his own right, but the current mix of players lengthens Dallas’ lineup. That’s a good thing to have when going against teams like Oklahoma City, Houston and Memphis in the playoffs.

Just ask the Philadelphia 76ers how they feel about signing Joel Embiid to a long term extension. In order to avoid that fate, Harrison said, “we got ahead of what was going to be a tumultuous summer, him being eligible for the supermax and also a year away from him being able to opt out of any contract.” Sometimes in the NBA, it’s more important to escape signing a bad contract rather than agreeing to savvy ones.

Doncic would have been eligible for a five-year, $345 million supermax contract with Dallas. Even though there’s a chance that figure would have looked like a discount in a couple of years, Harrison did not want the majority of the salary cap tied up to a player the franchise had serious internal concerns about.

As Harrison himself said, time will tell as to whether this move will be the right one. Even though he’s facing widespread criticism, his tenure as Mavs GM hasn’t been awful. While the Mavericks did lose Jalen Brunson in free agency, Harrison also drafted Dereck Lively, traded for P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford, and signed the likes of Naji Marshall and Klay Thompson.

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