And last week, the Dallas-based Southwest Airlines attempted to cushion the blow from its decision to end its free-checked-bags policy by reminding followers on Instagram: “It’s not like we traded Luka…”
Instagram content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Getting dunked on by a major airline is probably the least of the Mavericks’ worries these days. There is a growing fear that, after losing Dončić, the team could now be in danger of losing droves of fans.
“There’s no rectifying it,” said Cowlishaw. “The fallout is going to be immense.”
Jason Gallagher was a Mavericks fan before it was cool. As a ’90s kid growing up in Dallas, Gallagher cheered on the team when it was one of the NBA’s bottom-feeders and an outcast in the local sports scene.
“When you grew up in Dallas as a Mavs fan, especially my age, it was like loving an indie band in town,” said Gallagher, a producer for the popular basketball podcast, The Young Man and the Three.
But the Mavericks’ fortunes changed around the millennium, following the acquisition of Nowitzki in the 1998 NBA Draft and Mark Cuban’s purchase of the team in 2000. Thanks to Nowitzki’s on-court brilliance and Cuban’s hands-on ownership, the Mavericks became one of the league’s healthiest franchises, a perennial playoff contender that won the NBA title in 2011 and built a following that extended beyond hipster fans like Gallagher.
“It was 20-plus years of building a relationship with fans,” said Gallagher.
But in the wake of the Dončić trade, that relationship has been ruptured and Gallagher, for one, is questioning his fandom. “I’m kind of done with this team,” he said. “Until this organization makes some sort of significant change that acknowledges their mistake, that actually offers a hand to fans, I just have no faith in them. I find them to be an extremely insulting organization.”
Gallagher has a particularly unique perspective on the matter because he also has a relationship with two of the primary beneficiaries of the trade: James and Lakers head coach JJ Redick, who cohosted a podcast together last year on which Gallagher served as director. Gallagher ran into Redick in New Orleans last month during the Super Bowl, where the two shared a commiserating embrace.
“He gave me a big hug and it felt like there was something behind it,” Gallagher told me.
“I make a ton of jokes about it,” he said. “But it really is just so damn depressing.”
In hindsight, the seeds for the trade were planted in November 2023, when Cuban sold his majority stake in the Mavericks to the family of Miriam Adelson and Patrick Dumont, who runs the Las Vegas Sands casino company. As a result of the sale, Dumont, Adelson’s son-in-law, replaced Cuban as the Mavericks’ governor, although Cuban said at the time that he would retain control over the team’s basketball operations. But the Dončić trade made it clear that Cuban, who kept a 27% stake in the Mavericks, no longer holds that power. It also seems clear that Harrison wouldn’t have been able to get the green light from Cuban on the trade as he was able to with Dumont. According to veteran NBA insider Marc Stein, Cuban urged Harrison not to trade Dončić. By the time Cuban found out about the trade, per Stein, “it was too late.”