Final Luka Doncic Trade Bs Meter: Why Did Dallas Mavericks Really Deal NBA Superstar?
It's already been two months since the Dallas Mavericks rattled the NBA world by trading Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Since the move, he's putting up 27.3 points, 8.3 rebounds and 7.7 assists per game and is continuing to flummox fans and analysts who are still trying to figure out how this happened.
The Mavericks have tried to offer explanations for why they unloaded a 25-year-old, five-time first-team All-NBA guard for a single first-round pick, a rotation player and an oft-injured, past-his-prime big man after negotiating with only one team.
Most (if not all) of those explanations are unreasonable. All of these weeks later, it's still fair to wonder if we even know the real reason this happened.
As Luka prepares to play his first game in Dallas as a visitor, we're going to try to figure out what it is.
Luka's Out of Shape?
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One of the earliest and most consistent narratives that emerged after the deal was that Luka was overweight, out of shape and unserious about the work necessary to be a champion.
Team governor Patrick Dumont tried to articulate that concern. As has been the case with all of his public comments since the deal, he didn't make any real sense of the situation.
"In my mind, the way teams win is by focus, by having the right character, by having the right culture, and having the right dedication to work as hard as possible to create a championship-winning outcome," Dumont told Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News. "And if you’re not doing that, you’re going to lose.
"If you look at the greats in the league, the people you and I grew up with—[Michael] Jordan, [Larry] Bird, Kobe [Bryant], Shaq[uille O'Neal]—they worked really hard every day, with a singular focus to win. And if you don’t have that, it doesn’t work. And if you don’t have that, you shouldn’t be part of the Dallas Mavericks."
Dumont conveniently ignored how weight was one of the most persistent criticisms of Shaq throughout his Hall of Fame career. But the implication here is that Luka doesn't have whatever intangible drove all the stars above.
Everyone who's watched a handful of Dončić games, especially playoff games, knows that's absurd. You can see the competitiveness in every reaction to a cold-blooded, stepback three. Remember this?
That game-winner was crucial in booking a trip to the NBA Finals. Over the course of that playoff run, Dallas' net rating was 5.0 points better with Luka on the floor.
On top of that, he's second all-time in career playoff points per game. He's in the middle of his sixth season with at least 25 points, eight rebounds and seven assists per game. That's already the most 25-8-7 campaigns ever. (Oscar Robertson is second with five.)
You cannot be that productive, or that historically unique in a league that's been around for more than 75 years, while also being some kind of loafer.
Regardless of whether Dončić fit Dumont and general manager Nico Harrison's definition of work ethic, he raised the ceiling of every Mavericks team he was on. He's in the middle of perhaps the best start to an NBA career ever.
If he was out of shape, every organization should be so lucky to land that level of laggard.
Meter: Total BS
Defense Wins Championships?
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If we were just running the old adage "defense wins championships" through the meter, it'd come out with little to no BS attached to it.
In general, it's true. In just about every team sport, defense is a critical strength of title-winning teams.
The top three betting favorites for this NBA season—the Oklahoma City Thunder, Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers—are first, sixth and eighth, respectively, in points allowed per 100 possessions.
And yes, Anthony Davis is clearly a better defensive player than Luka. Maybe that's what motivated Harrison to regurgitate the cliche right after news of the deal broke.
But in today's NBA, rim protectors are nowhere near as valuable of a player archetype as offensive engines. When you factor in the age and durability differences between Davis and Luka, "defense wins championships" is nowhere near enough of an explanation for this trade.
Besides, Dallas just made it to the Finals last year largely on the strength of its defense. From the P.J. Washington trade to the end of the 2023-24 campaign, the Mavericks were seventh in points allowed per 100 possessions. In the playoffs, the Thunder and Celtics were the only teams that made it past the first round and had better defenses.
Dallas had already figured out how to surround Luka with a championship-caliber defense. It had him, another superstar-level creator in Kyrie Irving and tons of length and defensive grit from Washington, Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford.
Dončić sometimes gets targeted by opposing offensive schemes and game plans. But that didn't prevent him from taking at least two Dallas squads much deeper into the playoffs than they could've gone without him.
Meter: Total BS
Luka's Upcoming Extension?
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Had the Mavericks opted to keep Luka, he would have become eligible for a five-year, $345.3 million max extension this offseason.
For team governors Patrick Dumont and Miriam Adelson, that number may have been a bit too daunting.
This is Dumont and Adelson's first foray into NBA ownership. They may not have fully grasped that all-time greats almost invariably sign max deals in their primes or leading up to it.
If their incumbent team won't give them that money, another organization will offer however much it can. And because player salaries are determined by incoming basketball-related income—including the NBA's massive 11-year, $76 billion national TV deals that start next season—contracts like the one Luka could've signed are essentially already built into the budget.
Yes, having a supermax deal on the books opens owners up to a higher likelihood of luxury-tax payments, but that's the cost of doing business in the NBA. To compete for championships, you almost certainly need to have players on max contracts and make those tax payments.
Given their relative inexperience in this particular industry, there's at least a chance Dumont and Adelson didn't fully understand all of the above. They seemingly thought they could compete at a similar level without the pre-prime, all-time great already on the roster.
Meter: Suddenly not moving as much.
Mavericks, Lakers and the NBA in Cahoots?
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When something as nonsensical as the Luka trade happens, it's natural to look for less conventional explanations. The conventional ones aren't cutting it.
So, it should come as little surprise that plenty have wondered if the NBA supported this move to get a young superstar on its most glamorous franchise in an effort to stem the tide of declining television ratings.
In the absence of a reasonable explanation, some have also wondered if Harrison, a former Nike executive who knew and worked with Kobe Bryant, simply wanted to send one of the game's brightest talents to L.A.
Some have even speculated that Adelson, the owner of the Sands casino, wanted to torpedo the Dallas fanbase's interest in the team before packing it up and moving it to Las Vegas.
However, Dumont and Adelson have publicly denied the Mavericks-to-Vegas theory. And at the risk of sharing a cliche shortly after attacking another: simple ineptitude or negligence is likelier than whatever malice would have to drive any of the above theories.
Meter: BS
A Perfect Storm
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"Incompetent" feels strong for a description of Harrison. After all, he was a successful executive for Nike, and he deserves credit for the moves he made in 2023-24 that helped spur the Mavericks' Finals run.
But he is still relatively inexperienced as an NBA executive. And he's working for new owners with no prior experience in professional sports.
Those conditions allowed ill-conceived or flat-out incorrect notions like "he's out of shape," "we can't guard with him" or "we can't afford him" to flourish. Those led to what could go down as one of the most catastrophic decisions in league history.
These things are almost always judged on whether or not they result in championships. It's far from guaranteed that Luka will win one with the Lakers.
But Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, Pau Gasol, LeBron James and Anthony Davis all played for different teams before joining the Lakers. They all won titles in purple and gold.
Dončić is on a track that could end with him being considered one of the best players the league has ever seen. When those players wind up on the Lakers, they typically win championships.
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