The ‘Mavs’ stupidity still hard to fathom

With one simple trade between the Dallas Mavericks and the LA Lakers, the NBA is back to being the most entertaining professional sports to watch on the boob tube, aside from, perhaps, the former Lingerie Football League (re-runs) and Professional Bull Riding.

That’s thanks to the Dallas Mavericks trading away a baller who is arguably the best player in the NBA today, Slovenian Luka Dončić (Daan-chuch), to the LA Lakers where he can play with the NBA’s other dynamo, despite being 40, LeBron James.

The Bone-Headed Trade

In fact, when the Mavs played the Lakers in LA last Tuesday (Feb. 25), Laker fans were chanting, “Thank you, Nico,” in a nod to the Mavs’ GM, Nico Harrison, who is credited with being the force behind giving up Dončić to the Lakers for lesser talent.

Every game that Dončić plays is worth watching. With him, LeBron James, and Austin Reaves, making the game look easy, there’s no better ticket today in the NBA.

Thank you, Nico, say LA fans, and who can blame them. Looking at Harrison’s impressive pro career, why not let him trade away (from Dallas) one of the most talented players to ever play the game?

After all, who knows the game better than Nico who racked up this impressive pro resume before joining the Mavs in 2021 as its new GM: Harrison played seven years of professional basketball, including time spent with the Leuven Bears in Belgium for the 1996-97 season, and two years for the Hitachi Honsha Rising Sun in Japan from 1998 until 2000.

Impressive creds, to say the least. Harrison then played for the Black Hills Posse of the International Basketball Association (IBA) during the 1997–98 season where he averaged 8.9 points and 3.2 rebounds per game. His final year overseas was in Lebanon with a team in Beirut. (Source: Dallas Morning News.)

With that sort of career highlights in pro basketball why not hire him as the Mavs’ GM and let him trade away Dončić? Who knows the game better than a guy who once played for the Black Hills Posse?

Makes sense if you’re sadly suffering from some form of dementia and can’t remember what constitutes a good trade: you keep the really great players on your team forever.

You know, like the Mavericks did with Dirk Nowitzki, another international player like Dončić, who played his entire 21-year career in Dallas.

Both, Nowitzki and Dončić, were fan faves. Only difference is, under Harrison and the team’s new owners, a gambling family based in Vegas, Dončić is gone.

Sweet Revenge

What made last week’s game in LA so sweet — the Lakers vs. the Mavs — is that LA won, 107-99. Nico Harrison had to sit in the stands and watch his trade show itself for what it really is — stupid beyond belief.

Word now is coming out why the Mavs traded Dončić. If you haven’t heard it, you won’t believe it.

Apparently, Nico convinced the new team owners that Doncic didn’t fit the Dallas “culture.” He drank too much beer, he smoked tobacco (using a hookah), and he ate too many cheeseburgers.

At 6’ 8”, maybe 270, the ability to play the game like few others, so what?

In fact, based on how good Dončić plays the game, as good as LeBron, and that’s saying something, if I were Nico, instead of trading Luka Dončić, I’d get the whole team drinking beer and smoking tobacco, eating junk food.

Whatever it took to get them to play as good as Dončić.

Only one problem with that idea, really. There is only one Luka Dončić, one Luka Magic, and the Mavs no longer have him on its roster.

Which is why this column is aptly named — “Stupid Sports Column.”