The NBA was left stunned by the unexpected late-night news on Saturday, with the unexpected move of Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for Anthony Davis from Los Angeles Lakers.
With this surprising transaction, sports fans in Dallas ended a black week that began on Monday with what many considered the disappointing announcement of Brian Schottenheimer as the new head coach of the Cowboys, who went from being Mike McCarthy’s offensive coordinator to having the top job, when it seemed there were more attractive candidates to take over: Deion Sanders, Pete Carroll, Robert Saleh were interviewed, even Bill Belichick’s name was mentioned.
And when the days went by to assimilate Jerry Jones’ decision with the NFL team, the NBA franchise dashed the hopes of Dallas fans with the departure of Luka Doncic, the current and perhaps greatest figure in Mavericks history along with German Dirk Nowitzki
Are the Mavs overtaking the Cowboys?
The two decisions were disapproved by a large number of fans, Schottenheimer’s was not liked and many fans along with Cowboys personalities expressed their annoyance, but Doncic’s was a shock to which opinions from any sector agreed that they were shocked, some more annoyed and others, like Nowitzki, simply posted on X an emoji with a suffering face or even Patrick Mahomes put: “Wait what?”.
Doncic is 25 years old and this summer was eligible for a five-year, $345 million contract extension, when everything pointed to that being the case came the abrupt move, apparently because in Dallas they are not convinced of the Slovenian’s physical condition and did not want to risk paying him a million-dollar deal, while the Lakers are not worried about either his condition or the money, because they will have in Luka the next face of the franchise, while they make a transition in a partnership with LeBron James, although they had to part with Anthony Davis.