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While the Dallas Mavericks trading Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers has been heradled by many as a massive mistake, one who agrees that there was a lack of understanding is former owner Mark Cuban. While the new Mavericks owner in Patrick Dumont takes after Cuban, the latter still gave his thoughts on the franchise-changing move.
Cuban was on “The Stephen A. Smith Show” and was asked if it was fair criticism that the conditioning of Doncic was a concern as it was reported to be from the team. He would look from Doncic's perspective as Cuban said some aspects weren't “considered as fully as it should have been.”
“Everybody saw him,” Cuban said. “It wasn’t like he was ripped and had a six-pack but what the biggest mistake was in trying to understand Luka is that he’s from the Balkans, he’s Slovenian. And you look at Nikola Jokic, who’s Serbian, and you look at Serbian players in general, they’re just a different mindset. They look at the game differently, they look at life differently, the guys that I’ve gotten to know from that from that region of the world are different and I think that was what was not considered as fully as it should have been.”
Former Mavericks owner Mark Cuban speaks on Luka Doncic
While people have been speculating if the decision to trade Doncic could cost the job of Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison, Cuban further examines the possible misunderstanding of the situation.
“You’ve got to understand what people are like,” Cuban said. “What their backgrounds are like, who they are personally, what their families are like, how they interact with other people, and from that part of the world in my experiences, Luka was just, other than the basketball talent, he was just like every other guy.”
“And I think that was one of the reasons, he loves to play with the Slovenian team, he relates so well to all the other players from that part of the world, and over the summers that’s who he’s hanging out with, that’s who he is,” Cuban continued. “So I don’t think that we truly took the time to understand that, and that really led to this decision. And that really underpinned this decision, that lack of attention to that issue and I think that’s here we are now.”
At any rate, Dallas has to live with the trade as despite getting Anthony Davis, the team has been through a rough patch with an immense amount of injuries. However, they're currently 38-41 which puts them ninth in the Western Conference as funny enough, their next game is against the visiting Doncic and the Lakers.
