The Dallas Mavericks made what’ll go down as one of the most shocking trades in sports history, and the Boston Celtics might’ve played a role.
Dallas traded generational star Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers early Sunday morning in exchange for Anthony Davis in a three-team trade involving the Utah Jazz. Six total players and a total of three draft selections made the unthinkable happen just four days before the NBA trade deadline, shining the spotlight not on Doncic, but on Mavericks president of basketball operations Nico Harrison.
Harrison gave up on Doncic, a five-time All-Star with five All-NBA First-Team selections, and turned the Dirk Nowitzki statue in Dallas into a memorial of remembrance of Doncic’s tenure as a Maverick.
“We’ve had a vision in the culture that we wanna create since we’ve been here,” Harrison told reporters Sunday, per ESPN. “And the players that we’re bringing in, we believe exemplify that. And we think defense wins championships, and we’re bringing in one of the best two-way players in the league. A lot of people don’t talk about what he does defensively and offensively but you can name First-Team All-NBA players that are also First-Team All-Defensive players. That’s a unique unicorn to find and we found that.”
Harrison added: “We feel that defense wins championships and we’re excited to go.”
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The Mavericks saw firsthand what it takes to win a championship seven months ago when Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and the Celtics made easy work of Doncic and Kyrie Irving in the NBA Finals. Boston put Dallas away in five games in a not-so-competitive series that exposed Doncic and supported Harrison’s rationale for trading him: defense.
Doncic got barbecue chickened on defense as Joe Mazzulla’s offense repeatedly targeted the 25-year-old. Frustrations got the best of Doncic in Game 3 as he committed an unnecessary defensive foul — his sixth — to exit the game early. It was the worst possible sign from a team leader at the worst possible time, and because Doncic failed to adjust defensively throughout the series, coupled with the Mavericks not having the weapons to match the Celtics offensively, Dallas faltered miserably.
Boston took advantage of every Mavericks weakness, and even though Doncic carried the scoring load by averaging a team-high 29.2 points with 8.8 rebounds and 5.6 assists in the series, it wasn’t enough.
Doncic was burned out as he’d just run a marathon every game, Irving could only do so much to follow and the depth was nonexistent.
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MORE CELTICS
Harrison, aware of the implications that come with trading a superstar of Doncic’s caliber at this stage in his career, is committed. Harrison believes that the solution is to steer Dallas toward a defensive-minded identity, even if it means parting ways with Doncic amid his journey to becoming the best Maverick of all time.
“I think the long-term is the time frame,” Harrison said. “I think (Davis) fits our time frame. If you pair him with Kyrie and the rest of the guys, he fits right along with our time frame to win now and to win in the future — and the future to me is 3-4 years from now. The future, 10 years from now, I don’t know.”
Davis, an injury-prone center and 10-time All-Star, turns 32 in March, and with Irving already 32, the future of Dallas is questionable. If Davis and Irving fail to deliver, how can the Mavericks explain trading Doncic for one first-round selection and how could Harrison ever be trusted as a capable general manager ever again?
Even though the Celtics’ fingerprints left a few smudges in this blockbuster, Harrison has now brought immense pressure and attention upon himself.
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Featured image via Peter Casey/Imagn Images