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Luka Dončić’s father, Sasa, was not pleased that the Dallas Mavericks didn’t give his son any indication that they were planning on trading him to the Los Angeles Lakers before the stunning deal went down.
“I think that exactly this secrecy—or should I say from some individuals, maybe even hypocrisy—this hurts me personally,” he said Sunday during the Slovenian broadcast of the Mavs vs. Cleveland Cavaliers. “I think that Luka absolutely doesn’t deserve this. … I feel like this is very unfair from some individuals because I know that Luka respected Dallas a lot. He respected the whole city, helped children.”
“It wasn’t even a problem last year since, I am saying again, one individual said he’s not fit enough,” he added. “That he played, I don’t know, 100 games, practically 40 minutes with two or three players constantly on him. That he was beaten and you say such things about him. I feel that this is very unfair from certain individuals. You traded him, stand by your actions but don’t look for excuses or alibis, that’s it.”
Between the regular season and playoffs last season, Dončić played 92 games. But there have been reports that Dallas was frustrated with Dončić’s conditioning habits and his weight, and general manager Nico Harrison hinted that the team was never sold on offering Dončić the five-year, $345 million supermax contract he would have been eligible to sign.
“I feel like we got out in front of what could have been a tumultuous summer,” Harrison said Sunday. “Other teams that were loading up that he was going to be able to decide, make his own decision at some point of whether he wants to be here or not. Whether we want to supermax him or not, or whether he wants to opt out. So, I think we had to take all that into consideration.”
Instead, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Tim MacMahon reported that Harrison “decided early on, team sources said, that the best way to trade a player of Dončić’s caliber was to pick the trade that he wanted, rather than open up the process, to avoid Dončić and his agent exerting their own leverage. It would also avoid the crippling fan backlash that might influence the deal.”
So the most popular player the franchise has had since Dirk Nowitzki—one of the truly elite players in the NBA who was just entering his prime years and had never expressed plans to leave Dallas—was traded without any sort of bidding war around the league or consideration of the fan base that adored him. It isn’t hard to understand why some people, including those in Dončić’s circle, have felt a bit betrayed.
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