Dallas Mavericks fans have spent the last few months in something akin to open rebellion against the team’s front office after franchise icon Luka Dončić was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.
On Monday, that all might have just become incredibly turbulent water under the bridge.
The Mavs won the NBA lottery, getting the first pick in the draft and the chance to replace Dončić with Duke phenom Cooper Flagg. Going into the night with just a 1.8% shot of getting the No. 1 pick, the Mavericks might have just lucked into one of the all-time great draft shocks in sports history.
Consider this: in the period after the deal, the Mavericks went 14-21, lost Anthony Davis – the main player they received in return for Dončić – for weeks due to injury in his first game with the team, lost talisman Kyrie Irving to a season-ending ACL injury and watched a slew of other players go down hurt. Davis returned as the Mavs tried to win a spot in the NBA playoffs through the play-in round but ultimately fell short.
During that entire time, the fans demanded the dismissal of general manager Nico Harrison, the architect of the deal to send Dončić to the City of Angels, and pundits declared that the Mavericks had just made a potentially franchise killing move. Dončić is just 26 years old, led the team to the NBA Finals a season earlier, had been named All-NBA each year he had been in the league and was entering his prime. All reporting around the deal indicated that Dončić never planned to leave Dallas, and his emotional return to Texas indicated that the pain of the surprise move still lingers with him.
All in all, it was shaping up to be a disaster of historic proportions. How far would the franchise sink after placing its hopes on the shoulders of an aging core of players who are frequently injured and watching the anticipated cornerstone of the franchise link up with LeBron James and the Lakers?