{"id":121458,"date":"2025-02-02T08:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T13:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=121458"},"modified":"2025-02-02T08:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T13:44:09","slug":"dallas-mavericks-gm-nico-harrison-trading-luka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/02\/dallas-mavericks-gm-nico-harrison-trading-luka\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Mavericks GM Gives Idiotic Reasoning For Trading Luka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nobody can make sense of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/02\/lakers-mavericks-trade-luka-doncic-anthony-davis\/\" target=\"_self\">this trade<\/a>. The Dallas Mavericks have traded <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/doncilu01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luka Doncic<\/a> to the Lakers for <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/davisan02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Davis<\/a>, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chrisma02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Maxi Christie<\/a>, and a future first-round draft pick. Many around the league are trying to make sense of what would push Mavericks General Manager Nico Harrison to make such a bold move. Harrison has since explained why he made the Anthony Davis trade. Although some aren\u2019t buying his reasoning as the whole story, his claims are still completely ridiculous.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Dallas Mavericks GM Gives Idiotic Reasoning For Trading Luka<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>\u201cDefense Wins Championships\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When asked for his reasoning behind the Doncic trade, <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/espn_macmahon\/status\/1885922718333181992\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Harrison said<\/a>, \u201cI believe that defense wins championships. I believe that getting an All-Defensive center and an All-NBA player with a defensive mindset gives us a better chance. We\u2019re built to win now and in the future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s unpack this. Harrison is generally right. Defense does win <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/18\/4-reasons-why-the-celtics-won-the-nba-championship\/\" target=\"_self\">championships in the NBA<\/a>. That being said, having an All-Defensive center does not guarantee you anything when it comes to winning an NBA championship. The most-named All-Defensive center over the last few seasons, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/goberru01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rudy Gobert<\/a>, hasn\u2019t even made an NBA Finals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Luka Don\u010di\u0107 did NOT request a trade, league sources tell <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheSteinLine?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@TheSteinLine<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The Mavericks did this on their own accord, getting back Anthony Davis but only one future first-round pick from the Lakers in 2029 for a 25-year-old regarded as a future MVP.<\/p>\n<p>More NBA from me;\u2026 <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zL5E08wroD\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/zL5E08wroD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheSteinLine\/status\/1885924886562193766?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On top of that, before the Doncic for Anthony Davis trade, the Mavericks had a <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/teams\/advanced?Season=2024-25&amp;dir=A&amp;sort=DEF_RATING\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BETTER defense<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> than the Lakers defense that Davis led. The Mavericks are currently 12th in defensive rating and the Lakers are 21st. Make it make sense!<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Dallas Mavericks GM Has Missed with the Doncic Trade<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do you know what also helps you \u201cwin now and in the future\u201d? Having a 25-year-old who has already led you to one NBA Finals appearance. Yes, that is right, Doncic already has the same amount of Finals appearances at the age of 25 as Davis does for his entire career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Additionally, Doncic led a Mavericks team to the Finals with an elderly <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/irvinky01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyrie Irving<\/a> as his running mate. Davis did it with <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a> as his team\u2019s best player during a weird and flukey COVID-19 season. Although Davis and the Lakers did win it all while Doncic and the Mavericks fell short, who really had the more impressive run?<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>What Was Nico Harrison Thinking?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we\u2019ve shown, getting Davis in return for Doncic is not likely to help the Mavericks now or in the future. On top of that, reports are that Harrison didn\u2019t even shop Doncic around the league. He approached the Lakers for a trade and settled on a price of Davis, Christie, and a first-round pick.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Mavericks approached the Lakers recently and offered Luka Doncic, sources tell ESPN. Lakers brass met and believed the 25-year-old Doncic has the ability to be the face of their franchise for the next decade while giving Anthony Davis a win-now move in Dallas.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1885925196650963331?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a weak return. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/02\/better-packages-mavericks-could-have-in-luka-trade\/\" target=\"_self\">Doncic<\/a> probably could have commanded one of the highest trade returns of all time if he was shopped around. Can you imagine all of the picks and young players that teams would have been throwing at the Mavericks had the league known he was available?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Harrison missed a huge opportunity. Even if he had no choice in getting rid of Doncic, he could have set the Mavericks up much better for the present or the future had he just done the normal GM due diligence. What a fool.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Jerome Miron-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nobody can make sense of this trade. The Dallas Mavericks have traded Luka Doncic to the Lakers for Anthony Davis, Maxi Christie, and a future first-round draft pick. Many around the league are trying to make sense of what would push Mavericks General Manager Nico Harrison to make such a bold move. Harrison has since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5284,"featured_media":121490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,30,26,62,4721],"tags":[240,406,38,1133,4916,1382],"class_list":["post-121458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-mavericks","category-lakers","category-nba","category-trade-rumors","tag-anthony-davis","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic","tag-max-christie","tag-nba-trade"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121458"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121493,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121458\/revisions\/121493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}