The Los Angeles Lakers completed one of the biggest trades in professional sports history earlier this year when they acquired five-time All-Star Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks.
The move changed the landscape of the NBA for years, if not decades to come, with Doncic now the face of a Lakers franchise as he enters the prime of his career.
While Lakers fans were thrilled with the trade, the same can’t be said for supporters of the Mavericks. The decision to send Doncic to L.A. was met with vitriol and calls to fire president of basketball operations and general manager Nico Harrison.
Even longtime members of the Mavericks were said to be disappointed of the Doncic trade, including legendary head coach Don Nelson, who is still bitter to this day.
“As a matter of fact, I want everybody to know I’m wearing Luka’s shoes, his new shoes from Nike, just got on the market. I’m wearing them in protest for the trade from Dallas,” Nelson said during a press conference before Game 2 of the NBA Finals when he was announced as the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award winner.
“I think it was a tremendous mistake by the Dallas franchise to trade him, and I want everybody to know that. Because I learned from the best. I played a year for Red Auerbach. I played under him for Tommy Heinsohn and Bill Russell. I had the opportunity on my way, because I always went to the games early to sit and talk with Red, philosophy. And his philosophy was when you have a great player, Bill Russell, [John] Havlicek, Sam Jones, you never lose that player. You keep him for a lifetime. You put his number up and you honor that player and that’s been my philosophy.
“If you look at the players I’ve had over the years, Dirk and [Sidney] Moncrief and all the rest of them that I’ve coached, Nash was the exception because we were supposed to sign him and didn’t. Probably destroyed my relationship with Mark Cuban at the time because I was promised that we were going to sign Nash. I thought we would be winning titles there for a few years. I thought we would have a chance to win three or four titles in a row, but losing Nash set us back a little bit.
“But anyway, my philosophy was always to honor the great players, not trade them away, but to add pieces to that player and make him and your franchise the best that it could be. So, anyway, next question.”
Nelson coached the Mavericks from 1997-2005 and was in a similar situation when star point guard Steve Nash left the team for a max contract with the Phoenix Suns in free agency.
Nelson wanted Dallas to match the offer, but then-owner Mark Cuban declined to do so, which broke up the Mavericks’ core of Nash, Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Finley. Nelson would step down as head coach less than a year later, ending what could have been a dominant run.
While it will take years for some Mavericks fans to get over the Doncic trade, they at least have a little hope with the team winning the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery and getting the chance to select Duke star Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 overall pick.
Luka Doncic explains differences between NBA and Europe
During a recent episode of the “Mind the Game” podcast with LeBron James and Steve Nash, Luka Doncic explained why he feels it’s easier to score in the NBA than Europe.
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