NBA Player Says Luka Doncic Trade to Lakers Was 'Worst Decision in Modern Basketball'

Despite Nico Harrison's attempts to downplay the significance of the Luka Dončić trade, he's still having a difficult time finding anyone who will publicly support the move.

As part of their annual poll of 150 NBA players about key storylines from the regular season, The Athletic's Sam Amick and Josh Robbins sought opinions about the shocking deal that sent Dončić from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers.

One player described the trade as "probably the worst decision in modern basketball history."

It's extremely rare, particularly in this era that we live in, to find a unanimous opinion about anything. This trade is the one thing that everyone seems to agree was a disaster of epic proportions for the Mavericks.

USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt offered probably the nicest perspective on the deal for Dallas, writing the team did get a star player in return (Anthony Davis) who improves the defense and Max Christie "developed into a starter with an improving 3-point game."

Any other outlet that offered a grade on the deal was asking some variation of "what are the Mavericks doing?"

B/R's Andy Bailey graded the Mavs' side of the trade as an F, pointing out their defense ranked in the 81st percentile in the NBA this season when Dončić was on the floor.

Others who gave the Mavericks' portion of the trade a failing grade include ESPN's Kevin Pelton and CBS Sports' Brad Botkin.

Harrison's public attempts to explain the trade has been him constantly falling back on the phrase "defense wins championships." He put his foot in his mouth again on Monday, telling reporters he "didn't quite know to what level" Dončić meant to the Mavericks fanbase.

Even though the Feb. 2 trade seemed to come out of nowhere, ESPN's Tim MacMahon noted things "truly began to disintegrate" between Dončić and the Mavs in the summer of 2023 due to differing opinions about the training and medical staff, as well as injury recovery practices.

The Lakers have been more than happy to benefit from Dallas' desire to move on from Dončić. They finished 21-13 in 34 games after the trade and earned the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference, in addition to knowing they have a 26-year-old cornerstone player to build around going forward.

Dallas, meanwhile, saw its season come to an end with a 120-106 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in the play-in tournament. The team is also entering a summer in which Kyrie Irving, who tore his ACL on March 3, can become a free agent by opting out of his contract.

Even though Harrison has expressed confidence Irving will still be with the Mavericks next season, the timeline for a torn ACL suggests he could miss a significant portion of the regular season regardless of which team he is playing for.