DALLAS – Luka Doncic is in Los Angeles now, meeting with the media, his Tuesday press conference as a newly-minted member of the Lakers clearly still as shocking to him as it’s been to all of Dallas, all of the NBA and really, all of the sports world.
“Everybody was surprised, so you could imagine how surprised I was,” said Luka, reflecting on the still-strange decision from the Mavericks to dump him in a trade. “I was almost asleep when I got a call, had to check it was April 1st.
“I couldn’t really believe it at first. It was a shock, a hard moment for me. It was home.”
There are some parallels – some funny, some ugly – between the two big Dallas sports stories of the week, the lopsided Luka deal (“The Herschel Reversal”) coming on the heels of Jerry Jones’ uninspired decision to hire Brian Schottenheimer as the new head coach of “America’s Team.”
In fact, we say the Mavs and the Cowboys are both guilty of the same “7 Deadly Sins,” as we discuss below in the Fish Report. To wit …
Sin 1: Jerry went “Cheap over Deep” in hiring “Schotty,” while Mavs GM Nico Harrison (and his ownership bosses) apparently balked at Luka’s upcoming $345 million supermax contract.
Sin 2: Jerry didn’t do an in-depth search of candidates, while Nico inexplicably told only the Lakers about Luka’s availability, thus robbing Dallas of the chance to “win the trade” in a bidding war.
Sin 3: While Jerry went on a supposed “solo mission,” Nico didn’t tell anybody inside the Mavs organization about his odd top-secret plan – not even coach Jason Kidd.
Sin 4: The Cowboys stand accused of being, as we like to put it, “A marketing company that plays football on the side.” And the new Mavs ownership? They are focused not on basketball, but rather on legalizing gambling in this state and turning part of DFW into “Las Vegas, Texas.”
Sin 5: Jerry lost a chance at doing something different, special, history-making, by not including Deion Sanders and Bill Belichick on his final list. And yes, the Mavs lost a sure-bet history-maker in the generational talent of Luka, still just 25.
Sin 6: Jerry’s Cowboys tend to bury themselves in goofy bumper-sticker cliches, like “All-In.” Nico did the same with his lame “Defense wins championships” explanation. (Reminder: It was just a few months ago that Luka led the Mavs to the NBA Finals.)
Sin 7: Jerry once passed on Randy Moss. And Moss made it his NFL goal to punish Dallas for the rest of his career. The Mavs? Watch and see what Luka (and LeBron’s) Lakers do to the Mavs when they meet. … it’s going to haunt like the Yankees’ Babe Ruth haunted Boston.
Why didn’t Jerry avoid some of these pitfalls? His explanations never quite explained that.
Why did Dallas trade Luka?
“They made a decision, I don’t know why … I can’t do nothing about it,” Doncic said sadly.
Want more Cowboys? Dig into the Fish Report!
