The Luka Doncic Trade Just Keeps Getting Worse

We are over 8 months removed from what Nico Harrison did at the 2025 trade deadline. And it still feels like it’s getting worse dayby day. And it’s not just the Luca Donic trade as well. It’s the other move he made at the 2025 deadline, which is just still perplexing to this day. And the 2026 Dallas Mavericks are off to a rocky start. We knew they were going to be without their top scorer, Kyrie Irving, until at least the second half of the NBA season. So, there’s a lot of weight on Anthony Davis, who they traded Luca Donuch for last year at the deadline, and an 18-year-old Cooper Flag. And so far, through five games this year, the Dallas Mavericks are the worst offensive team in the NBA in terms of offensive rating. Yeah, dead last. Number 30. They’re the fifth worst three-point shooting team in the NBA. They’re the sixth worst team in terms of two-point percentage in the NBA. They’re bottom 10 in assist, and they’re bottom 10 in turnovers. Yeah, not the bottom 10 you want to be in, and not statistic. They started off the NBA season getting blown out by Victor Wanyama and the San Antonio Spurs. You were hoping that Anthony Davis can still show that he was the best player on the floor. It was not that whatsoever. WBY caught everybody’s eyes to start off the year where he exploded for 40 points, 15 rebounds, basically making light work of Derek Lively in the paint and Anthony Davis. Cooper Flag did struggle in his NBA debut, which makes a lot of sense. The kid is 18 years old and I thought it was going to be unfair for him going into the season with the amount of pressure he was going to have on his back given the trade Nico Harrison made last year with the Kyrie Irving injury and with the expectations this somewhat older roster have this season. I made a video in the offseason talking about the NBA players with the most pressure this year. And I said in that video it’s going to be Cooper Flag and it’s going to be unfair to him, but it’s just how this team is constructed right now. And it hasn’t really helped that Jason Kid is playing him out of position. He’s playing primarily point guard this season. something he didn’t really operate that much of at Duke. It was Tyresese Proctor. It was even Kon Canipple. Caleb Foster played point guard as well last year. And Cooper Flag was more of aggressive offball scorer. And if you’re watching any Mavericks games this year, he is so much better in that role than somebody handling the ball because he looks flustered getting the ball over half court. He picks his dribble up way too early, which is something you don’t want out of a lead ball handler. And it’s really hurt the Dallas Mavericks overall offensive cohesion this year. It really kind of came crashing down in their second game when they lost 117 107 to the Washington Wizards. The same Wizards team that was projected to finish at the bottom of the Eastern Conference and they lost by 10 in this one. The offense was really bad outside of Anthony Davis and PJ Washington who did have 18 points in that game, but he also had eight turnovers. Keshan George looked way better than Cooper Flag did in this game. And it just added insult to injury because this coincided with the same night that Luca Dantic and the LA Lakers played the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday night where Luca had 49 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists. And I don’t want to harp on this anymore for Mavericks fans. I’m sure they’re just sick and tired of hearing about this trade. But it’s just comical where the Mavericks are like, “We’re kind of short-handed at point guard right now.” Well, you maybe had a generational point guard on your team last year. They would go on to get their first victory against the Toronto Raptors, 139 129. I mean, that win doesn’t look that impressive right now given the Raptors are one of the more struggling teams in the NBA to kick start off the season. They would go on to lose to the Oklahoma City Thunder 10194. And I am making this video after a win. They did beat the Indiana Pacers by two last night, 107 105, but this is pretty much like a G-League Pacers team. Hallebertton, Mathan, Nemhard, McConnell, Donnie Fury, OB Toppin, their two second round picks. Cam Jones and Taleon Peter are all hurt. So, this was a game in which Aaron Smith ended up shooting two of 16 from the field, one of nine from three. And remember, the Mavericks only won by two in this game. Ben Shepard started for this team. Ray Jay Dennis played 30 minutes. Jay Huff 21 minutes. Quinton Jackson 17 minutes. M. McClung appeared in his seventh NBA game. He even played 13 minutes in this game. And it didn’t look easy for the Dallas Mavericks because Anthony Davis got hurt early in the game. He was listed probable yesterday on their injury report with an injury described as bilateral Achilles tendinopathy. And this is a guy that has had plenty of injury history in his career, not just in New Orleans or LA, but honestly, he’s been banged up a ton with his short time with the Dallas Mavericks so far. And it was just a huge risk to play him on a meaningless Wednesday night game against an Indiana Pacers B squad. And he gets injured 7 minutes into this one. And now he’s currently dealing with left lower leg soreness. And it does seem like Anthony Davis is going to be just fine. This isn’t going to keep him out too long. But where have we heard this one before? Anthony Davis got hurt in his first game last year with the Dallas Mavericks against the Houston Rockets, a game in which he played great in. Then he would go on to miss the next 18 games for the Dallas Mavericks as they were trying to make a playoff push. And Anthony Davis when he’s on could still be one of the best 15 players in the NBA. It’s just right now at this point in of his career, 32 years old. You’re putting way too much faith into somebody that has had way too much of injury history right now. And it really sucks that you have some other injuries on your team, right? Derrick Lively recently got banged up. Daniel Gaffford still has yet to play a game this year. So, we haven’t even seen a single minute of Davis, Lively, and Gaffford altogether, which was a luxury for the Dallas Mavericks. All three of these guys got hurt at the same time last year, and all three of them are hurt right now at the same time this year. It’s just really unfortunate for how the Mavericks can build out this roster. And obviously, it’s insanely tough, too, when you don’t have Kyrie Irving right now. And a lot of these guys on the Dallas Mavericks are not stepping up. Like I said in the beginning of the video, Cooper Flag has unfair expectations for an 18-year-old. He was supposed to come in, average 18 to 20 points per game, be a front runner to win rookie of the year, maybe end up on an alldefensive team, and that could still happen this year. These may be some of the worst games we are ever going to see from Cooper Flag in his career. And he’s shooting around 41% from the field, 26% from three, and averaging 13 points to start off this year’s season. But it does feel like he’s playing out of position right now and it may not get better until Jason Kidd fully moves him off the point guard position. But right now their other point guard is D’Angelo Russell and he’s shooting 32% from the field and 18% from three. DLO does not provide you much value elsewhere if he’s not knocking down his shots because he’s not much of a defender right now at this point in his career. Naji Marshall has been struggling for the Dallas Mavericks so far. Klay Thompson looks like it could be it for Klay which is really upsetting. So far this year, he’s shooting 31% from the field, 25% from three. It does look like he took a little bit of a step back with his athleticism from last year. And we even saw that dipping last year as well. So, this is way too much faith into a 35year-old that is not the same shooter or defender he was a couple years ago in Golden State. And oh yeah, you have Caleb Martin as well who has averaged around eight minutes per game this year. The same guy you traded Quinn Grimes for and a second round pick last year. So, the Dallas Mavericks gave in a second round pick in that trade. And since Caleb Martin’s medicals got flagged, they didn’t have to give up that second rounder. But if you watched any game Quinn Grimes played in Dallas last year, you knew that he was a great fit around Luca Donuch, around Kyrie Irving, around those bigs down low. And then they trade Luca. Okay, we get that. He would have been a great fit around Anthony Davis, around the bigs still, and maybe even Cooper Flag if that ended up still happening. He played 28 games with Philadelphia last year. Averaged 22 points, five rebounds, and four and a half assists. And a lot of those games came without Embiid, Paul George, and Tyres Maxi. And they didn’t draft VJ Edgecom yet. So, so far this year, Embiid is playing, Maxi is playing. They drafted VJ Edgecomb. And Quinn Grimes has not lost a step from last year’s season, even with the whole contract dispute he had with Philadelphia in the offseason. You thought that could be a big storyline going into the year. There could be some drama. Maybe he wasn’t going to be the same player he was in the second half last year. No. through four games this year. Quinn Grimes is averaging 18 points, shooting 48% from three on seven attempts a night. He’d be a great three and D piece around this Dallas Mavericks team right now. And he’s even tweeting out like the vibes are immaculate in Philly. And that’s exactly what you had in Dallas. He’s from the Texas area. This was a great piece to have on your team for the future that you easily could have afforded going forward. You could have given him a little bit more money than Caleb Martin is currently making right now, but you’re stuck with Caleb Martin for the next few years, who has no trade value right now on the open market because he hasn’t really been healthy since you acquired him. And we saw the LA Lakers get out of the Mark Williams trade last year. You could have gotten out of the Caleb Martin trade, but they said, “No, we don’t care. We want Caleb Martin, who has played a total of 18 games for the Dallas Mavericks since last year’s trade deadline. 14 last year, four this year. And he’s averaging five points, two and a half rebounds, and is shooting 26% from three. Quinn Grimes is averaging around 20 points per game for Philadelphia, shooting over 40% from three since they acquired him. This trade is not as bad as the Luca Donic won, obviously on that scale. It’s obviously Luca, and that is one of the worst trades, not just NBA history, but in sports history. But the Quinn Grimes trade may be the second worst trade made in the NBA over the last 12 months, and that is saying a lot. And it’s a tough Western Conference right now. We knew going into the season that the Mavericks could go one of two ways, right? They could have exceeded expectations or this team could really fizzle out and they were going to end up maybe finishing bottom three in the Western Conference. And that’s what we’re treading towards right now. Their preseason projection was for them to finish around 500. And that could definitely happen. But you have this window with Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis. Going 500 is not good enough. You needed to bridge the gap until Kyrie came back and you added D’Angelo Russell who’s probably going to shoot better over the course of the season. I like what I’ve seen out of Brandon Williams this year as well. I think he could be a solid point guard for this team. Maybe they need to lean on Ryan Nemhard a little bit more, but do you hear that? Do you need to lean on an undrafted free agent from the most recent draft a little bit more? This is a disaster. And like I said, I don’t want to keep harping on this. I’m sure Mavericks fans are sick of hearing this right now. Like, shout out to Dwight Powell just having to play 29 minutes against the Indiana Pacers and coming through having 18 points, being a plus 12, and six rebounds on that game. Max Christie has been off to an amazing start this year shooting the basketball. 53% from the field, 52% from three. He’s averaging around 12 points this year and is still just 22 years old. This is a really good piece for the Dallas Mavericks going forward. And he was another piece in that Luca Dona trade. He’s making around $7 million this year, $8 million next year, and then could be a free agent in 2028. It’s not like he’s locked up for a super long time. But I just feel like it’s going to be a long season with a lot of ups and downs for the Dallas Mavericks. And I do wonder at one point do we say that this team should go in a little bit of a different direction and if you can get a good Anthony Davis stretch throughout maybe leading up to the All-Star break. Do you think about trading Anthony Davis? He would be one of the best players on the trade market. You could finally get out of somebody that is always going to be an injury concern with you going forward and you can maybe get some pieces that could fit the Cooper flag timeline a little bit more. It’s just a sad reality that you are getting nowhere near the value you gave up for Anthony Davis in your return if you did trade him this year because every single year we get later into AD’s career, the value is just going to diminish even more. Same thing with Kyrie Irving. Would you even think about that right now? Because I’m looking at the Western Conference and I’m looking at the Oklahoma City Thunder. I’m looking at what WBY is doing with the San Antonio Spurs right now. I’m looking at Golden State’s roster this year, which is also in a win now window, but is better than Dallas. Denver is better than Dallas right now. And can we even say Dallas is better than the Clippers, the Rockets, the Lakers, or even the Portland Trailblazers right now? I can’t confidently say that at the moment. They the third worst net rating in the Western Conference right now, only ahead of the New Orleans Pelicans and the Phoenix Suns. And this is a team that does thankfully own their first round pick this year. I don’t know, maybe it’ll be wise for them to enter that route right now if this team is just so different than what it was a little bit more than eight months ago before trading away Luca Dodge, who yes, has been banged up with the LA Lakers this year so far. But what he did against the Minnesota Timberwolves last Friday just shows how you had a once-in-a-lifetime talent and you traded him away maybe before we even reached the top of his peak yet in this league. And Luka Dodic is still just 26 years old. But I would love to know your guys’ thoughts and opinions on the Dallas Mavericks right now. The Luca Donuch trade is a sunk cost at this moment. We have to move on eventually. And I probably won’t make a video like this again talking about the Luca Donuch trade until maybe we get to January and I look back at this trade a year later. And I’m also a little bit worried what Nico Harrison may do. Like is he just going to be making moves like his job is on the line. Like I would be terrified if he made a short-sighted move that’s going to hinder their long-term success in this league because he wants to see this team get in the playoffs to see the roster he created around Cooper Flag AD and Kyrie Irving play meaningful games in April because if he doesn’t, he may get let go. So I would be scared that he would move a young asset or a future draft pick. I’m not sure if the ownership is going to step in. They didn’t step in when they traded away Luca Donic. So, I have no idea what they’re going to do. And it’s crazy, too, because I’m like looking at Mavs Twitter or I’m seeing stuff on Mavs Reddit and they enjoy watching this team when Anthony Davis is off the floor. I think they maybe had the most fun watching this team last year after Anthony Davis got hurt against the Indiana Pacers. And they have a fairly easy schedule coming up. Now, their next two games are Detroit and Houston. Those could go either way in those games. They could definitely go 0 and2 in that matchup, but they got the Pelicans, the Grizzlies, the Wizards on their schedule coming up, Suns, and then it turns a little bit into a gauntlet as well when you get into the mid to end parts of November. And I wouldn’t be totally shocked if this team is five or so games under 500 when we’re in early December. And you know, there’s that December 15 date where basically half the league can be traded. Anybody that signed an extension or got traded in the offseason can now be traded again on December 15th. And that’s where this team could have to make some really big decisions going forward. And also on the bright side as well, this team is fifth in the NBA in terms of defensive rating. And they played a little bit without Anthony Davis, without their bigs, Derrick Lively and Daniel Gaffford this year. So this is a very good defensive team. I would be totally shocked that they actually finished 30th in the NBA in offensive rating this season. So that should regress towards the mean for them. It’s just this team is one of the more volatile teams this year. I can’t really predict which way they’re going to go because if you told me, “Yeah, they’re five games under 500 in December,” I would totally believe that. But if they were five games over 500, I would probably believe that as well because I have that much faith in Cooper Flag. This team has good basketball players, but can they gel together? Going back to like the Kings and the Pelicans, those teams have good individual players, but you need to have some offensive cohesion out there. You need to have defensive communication. And the Mavericks are definitely looking just fine defensively right now, but they really need to put together a good offensive stretch. Maybe Brandon Williams saves this team. I don’t know. And I was also kind of struggling what team I wanted to talk about today for this video because I think there was four teams that I could have given a mention. The Orlando Magic have been struggling. The Sacramento Kings have been struggling. And I think I may talk about the New Orleans Pelicans in tomorrow’s video because this team may be the dumbest ran organization right now with the trades they made in the offseason and their start so far this year because yeah, Nico Harrison may be the second worst GM in the league. I don’t know. It’s him and Joe Dumar’s right now because these guys have made some terrible moves over the last year. But yeah, I’d love to know what you guys think about this video. Did you enjoy me talking about the Dallas Mavericks? Where do you think that they can go from here? Do you think that this is a team that could still make the playoffs in 2026? Do you think that they should maybe look to sell off some of their veterans throughout this season and reset the timeline around Cooper Flag, who like I said is just still 18 years old. You have, and God blessed by the lottery odds, a future all-star in this league. I still believe that and I won’t stop believing that until Cooper Flag is bad for like three straight years because he’s that good of a talent and he’s always going to impact the game that doesn’t show up in the traditional box score with his passing with his gravity on the floor and what he could do as an on ball and a help defender. So yeah, let me know what you guys think about the Dallas Mavericks in the comments below. Do you think that this team is going to be fine throughout the course of the year or do you think this is not going to be that exciting of a 2026 season? If you did enjoy, I would appreciate you dropping a thumbs up. Let me know in the comments what you guys thought of this video. I’ll catch you on the next one. Peace.

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43 comments

  1. Lakers won this trade hands down,AD is a shell of his former self,Luka is playing phenomenal since he has lost weight and J.Kidd is crashing out,Because he knows what it is.

  5. People are acting like Cooper is surrounded by ā€œstarsā€ who are ready to challenge for a championship, when in reality, Cooper is surrounded by a lot of old dudes who havenā€™t accepted they arenā€™t what they used to be. (Especially Klay.)

    If you want the Cooper Flagg people were excited about, youā€™re going to have to wait for the Anthony Davisā€™s on their roster to leave, or at the very least accept the ā€œwin every drillā€ approach Cooper brings to practice. The kid canā€™t change the culture of the team when the best player shows up to your first regular season game clearly out of shape, and is one of the biggest abusers of load management.

  9. So…an egotistical GM gets mad at his elite player goes to the owner and convinces him that trading his star player for a 32 year oldinjury prone player would make the team a contender next year. The owner bought it and now we have a roster that is old and will not make playoffs this year or next.
    I say we need new GM

  11. Dallas made the worst trade in the history of the NBA. In LA AD is known as made of glass. TradeAD as soon as you can and get a player that is not injured every other week. I can't believe that Nico traded Luka for Anthony Davis. Luka is averaging 45 points per game. Luka is such a good player. .

  12. Luka is never going to be worth having on your team, because he is useless on defense. He is just another version of James Harden – pad the stats through the roof, get outscored by the other team and lose because you can't stop anything.

  13. I get mad every time I think about this trade and I'm not even a Mavs fan lol. Bag fumble doesn't even begin to cover how badly Nico & co screwed up. Trade the franchise player who just got done taking you to the NBA Finals? Nasty, nasty work.

  14. Equally bad were all the takes that had the Mavs in the WCF.
    Ignoring that ADs spends a third of his career on being injured. Or that Kyrie was recovering from an ACL tear. Or that Flagg would probably need time.

    That trade was dumb and it was followed by equally dumb takes.

  16. I mean did anyone expect anything more..? Truly will not make any sense for 100+ years. We would need the likes of einstein, tesla and other generational geniuses to figure out the science behind this bullshit that happened last seasonā€¦ As a lakers fan iā€™m happy. as a ball fan, truly upset about the incompetence at the ownership and GM spot in dallas. Luka is probably one of my favorite players so now that heā€™s on my team itā€™s amazing but it still doesnā€™t even feel realā€¦ It doesnā€™t make sense.

  19. Luka for AD is like trading a 25 yr old Tom Brady for a 33 yr old Ben Roethlisberger. Nothing wrong with Ben at 33, it was really good. But, giving away Brady for him wouldn't be a fair trade

  21. jkidd doesnt know what hes doing. i understand putting our big men on minute restriction, but benching our pgs, like dlo and bwill, even jhardy, all 3 players who have played well to start the season whenever called upon, just to put coop at the 1 for "development" when we should be trying to contend, is just crazy work.

  24. for me, I love AD as he is my favorite basketball player but its so sad to see him on the Mavs, I really love what is happening on the Lakers with Luka and specially my boy Austin Reaves popping the hell off, I hate the Mavs but love AD, I still hate the fact that the Mavs made AD play through an injury till he couldnt even play anymore and had to leave the game

  29. The Lakers needed to be saved once again from being irrelevant, they can't draft for shit but they don't have to, league is always gonna hook them up with a superstar. Rigged ass league is a shitshow, but Mavs fans still think it's the GM who did this to them lmao

  30. Luka had access to GLP1 meds in 2023. Did he use them or try to do better otherwise? No. He was never going to get better in Dallas. He is better in LA because LeBron can keep him in check. Period.
    Did Dallas get enough for him maybe, maybe not. Only one place had an asset to trade and a player that Luka would have to respect, that was left. Lakers.
    Realistically, when that trade was made, how long would Luka be expected to beat Victor and Castle?

  34. The point was to win a title. Until luka wins a title this trade is just what it is. Luka already missing time with the lakers too with injury.

  39. In a way it fits our dark age.People saying horrible shit, not interesting about consequences, supporting murderers, trolls, terrorists, radicals of any types. And in this enviroument, Nico Harris thought " i am going to make the team much worse, just for fun".

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