Nearly eight months ago, Luka Dončić and the Dallas Mavericks stood on the TD Garden court and watched confetti fall as the Boston Celtics dribbled out the clock in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. It was Dončić’s first NBA Finals appearance and he left it all on the floor. Despite dealing with nagging injuries, he led both teams in scoring with 29.2 points per game across five contests.
The run was seen by many as a sign of things to come. Dallas — with Nico Harrison making moves as the team’s general manager — had managed to build a contending roster around Dončić just one year after missing the playoffs in an abysmal 38-44 2022-2023 campaign. Harrison manufactured trades for Kyrie Irving, PJ Washington, and Daniel Gafford — while drafting Dereck Lively II — in a 12-month span. He turned the Mavericks into a contender seemingly overnight. He’d built a good relationship with league executives, fans and players, and was three games away from having his name immortalized in Dallas sports history.
Now, after Saturday’s unfathomable trade, he stands alone.
He didn’t listen when Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont laughed at him when he first mentioned the idea of trading Dončić. He didn’t stop to think when Lakers GM Rob Pelinka was in disbelief upon hearing Dončić was on the table. He didn’t think of the fans, Luka’s teammates, or the franchise. Nico Harrison is in his own world now.
He’s built it that way by design. This trade was his — and his alone. Head coach Jason Kidd didn’t know about it. Dončić was blindsided by it. Irving, the heir-apparent to the face of the franchise status, wasn’t consulted. The trade was so secretive even the Utah Jazz — who were a part of the deal — didn’t know Dallas was dealing the 25-year old superstar until an hour before the trade became official, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelbourne and Tim MacMahon in their most recent reporting on the seismic move.
Harrison was quick to quiet any rumblings that anyone else was a part of this deal in his press conference Sunday. He and Pelinka met in private at a Dallas Ascension Coffee shop and manufactured the most shocking trade in NBA history — perhaps in all of sports history — without any outside influence. Harrison and Pelinka had seen previous trade requests go south as ESPN reported, citing Anthony Davis’ exit from New Orleans and the LeBron James-to-Golden State rumors from last season as two examples of trades or potential trades that were affected by players and public opinion.
