Luka Dončić was born in Slovenia and spent most of his teenage years in Spain. He moved to the United States in 2018. Over the past seven years, he has picked up a few American habits.

One of them is his football fandom.

“Did you see the Cowboys?” Dončić asked reporters Sunday.

Luka — “you see the Cowboys” pic.twitter.com/To4DEbsMrE

— Dallas Texas TV (@DallasTexasTV) November 24, 2025

While Dončić was busy orchestrating the Los Angeles Lakers’ offense in their win over the Utah Jazz, the Dallas Cowboys had stormed back from a 21-point deficit to beat a bitter rival, the Philadelphia Eagles, at home.

Dončić became a Cowboys fan during the 6 1/2 seasons he spent playing for the Dallas Mavericks. In April, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones described Dončić as a “personal friend” and revealed that his wife, Eugenia, cried when the Mavericks traded their one-time face of the franchise to the Lakers.

It’s been almost 10 months since the trade, and Mavericks fans are still healing.

Ahead of Friday’s game between Dallas and Los Angeles, The Athletic’s Mavericks writer Christian Clark and Lakers writer Dan Woike got together to discuss the state of each team.

Christian Clark: The Mavericks thought they could be dark-horse contenders to win a championship this season. Right now, they’re dark-horse contenders to win the lottery for the second year in a row.

The Mavericks, at 5-14, are in 14th place in the Western Conference. Their biggest problem isn’t difficult to identify. They can’t score.

Dallas is ranked 30th in the NBA in offense. This team has too many frontcourt players and not enough advantage-creating guards. The D’Angelo Russell signing last summer has been a bust. In the Mavericks’ loss to the Miami Heat on Monday, Dallas coach Jason Kidd benched Russell in the second half in favor of undrafted two-way signee Ryan Nembhard.

The present looks bleak in Dallas, but at least Cooper Flagg is here to provide long-term hope. How’s everything going in Laker Land?

Dan Woike: It’s incredible how quickly the Lakers (13-4) have become “Luka Land.” Fans even sang a Backstreet Boys song during an in-game karaoke segment. It was the first time I’ve ever seen something like that happen at a Lakers game.

The team has adopted a culture with tons of trash-talking, competition and togetherness — and Dončić has his fingerprints on all of it. And even with his individual greatness, the group’s strength has been the real early-season story.

The team’s strong start has come with a dominant stretch of play by Dončić. He’s a legitimate MVP candidate and a favorite to lead the league in scoring for the rest of the season. But it’s been most impressive to see the ways he’s made things easier offensively for his teammates. When the going is good, the Lakers’ offense can create basically any shot it wants on the court. They haven’t made many of their open 3s yet, but when that happens, they all know it’s going to be tough to stop.

Vibes, not an official NBA stat, are incredibly high. So, about all that in Dallas …

Clark: The vibes here were in the dirt the first two weeks of the season, but they’ve improved a little since the Mavericks decided to fire Nico Harrison on Nov. 11. The fan base’s anger at Harrison was wearing on the players, which made keeping him in power untenable. Home games had become a hostile environment. That’s no longer the case.

The Mavericks remain a rough watch, and they probably will until Kyrie Irving can return. Harrison seems to have fundamentally not understood how valuable shot creation is in the modern game. The Dončić trade makes it easy to forget that Harrison sent Quentin Grimes and a second-round pick to the Philadelphia 76ers for Caleb Martin. Grimes is averaging 16.2 points and 4.1 assists per game in Philadelphia. Martin has scored 24 points in 16 games this season for the Mavericks. He’s owed $10 million next year and holds a $9.4 million player option in 2027-28.

With Harrison gone, how different do you expect Mavericks-Lakers games to feel? Their two meetings last season after the trade were emotionally charged, to put it mildly.

Woike: I mean, the wounds might not be fresh, but there are definitely scabs. Every time a Dončić highlight gets posted or whenever Dončić mentions the Cowboys or the Mavericks — like he did in Oklahoma City when a reporter asked him about Harrison’s firing — I see there are still feelings there.

But I have a hard time thinking we’re going to see anything close to what we did last year when Dončić played the Mavs. When the Lakers played Dallas last season, Dončić looked like someone who had stumbled into the wrong locker room and put on the wrong jersey. This year, he looks like he belongs on the Lakers. He has real bonds with players, real relationships with staff members and an actual sense of belonging with the city.

Luka Dončić speaks to the fans at Crypto.com Arena before a Lakers game against the Golden State Warriors in October. (Luke Hales / Getty Images)

I’m kind of curious to see how the Lakers treat Anthony Davis upon his return, provided he plays. He missed the game here last year, and though the Lakers gave him the tribute-video treatment, some kind of continued celebration for him seems appropriate considering what he meant to their most recent championship.

It’s pretty wild that “What about AD?” is such a distant storyline considering the caliber of player he is and the career he’s had.

Clark: There were so many layers to this trade, a 10-time All-Star sometimes feels like an afterthought.

Last season, the Mavericks loved to tout that Davis was voted one of the top 75 NBA players of all time in 2021. Unfortunately, Mavericks fans barely have been able to watch him play. Davis has suited up in just 14 games since the trade. He rushed back from injury too early last season and suffered an adductor strain in his first game in a Mavericks uniform.

This fall, Davis reported to training camp overweight. He then came up limping in a game two days before Halloween. The diagnosis? A left calf strain, the same injury Dončić had when the Mavericks traded him in the middle of the night. Davis has missed Dallas’ last 14 games, a stretch in which the team has gone 3-11.

The trade rumors involving Davis are already swirling. Minority owner Mark Cuban refuted that the Mavericks will look to move Davis before the Feb. 5 trade deadline. It’s important to note, however, that the decision isn’t Cuban’s call. Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont has taken more of an active role in team business this season and has the final say.

A lot has felt surreal about this whole thing, maybe nothing more so than Dumont carrying on a courtside conversation with a young Dallasite who was wearing Dončić’s Lakers jersey the night before Harrison was fired. Is there an enduring memory you’ll take out of this?

Woike: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a star player not thrilled to be traded to the Lakers. If Dončić loves his life with the Lakers, it’s because he has learned to love it. He’d never have worn this uniform if it wasn’t for the Mavericks.

Clark: I don’t think that’s going to make Mavericks fans feel any better. Dončić was the heir apparent to Dirk Nowitzki. He seemed totally content to spend his entire NBA career in Dallas. It said so much that Nowitzki flew to Los Angeles to attend Dončić’s Lakers debut in February.

The Mavericks took the first step toward fixing the relationship with their fan base by firing Harrison. Even with him gone, I imagine it’s still going to be painful for them to watch Dončić play in purple and gold for a long time.