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Two full weeks have passed since the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Lakers came together to put the finishing touches on one of the most surprising trades in the history of professional sports, a deal that sent Anthony Davis to Dallas in exchange for Luka Doncic, who becomes the latest superstar to don the purple and gold of the Lakers. Even with as much time that has gone by and as many well-sourced pieces that have been written, there's still no totally reasonable rationale for why Dallas decided to trade Doncic in the manner they did.
Sure there are built-in concerns about Luka's injury and conditioning history. However, those concerns have been present since before Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison arrived in Dallas, and to be clear, Doncic was already on a super-duper-star trajectory when Harrison got the job in 2021. But as more time goes by, it appears as if how much of a contrast there is in the way Nico Harrison lives his life compared to the way Luka Doncic does was the instigating factor in this deal being made.
According to Christian Clark, Mark Vorkunov and Fred Katz of The Athletic, a “disciplined and detailed” Harrison found Doncic's lifestyle choices — drinking beer, smoking hookah and not taking his diet or conditioning all that seriously — problematic as he looked to build a championship caliber team in a manner similar to the way he lives his own life.
Even if their values didn't necessarily align, Doncic was Nico Harrison's ticket to title contention. He willed the Mavericks to the NBA Finals last year and remains a threat to take over any postseason series no matter who the opponent was. Harrison willingly said goodbye to all of that in order to bring in Anthony Davis, an incredibly talented 31-year-old who has a much lengthier injury history than Doncic has. AD didn't last one full game before suffering an injury that will sideline him for multiple weeks.
Surely, there was more conflict between the two behind the scenes than we know. Doncic routinely received criticism for being overweight and out of shape, which would naturally rub Harrison, who the writers for The Athletic noted frequently greets friends with the question, “What did you eat today,” the wrong way. However, the objective in the NBA is winning games — not having all of the food groups represented in your diet — and few players have impacted winning in a more drastic way than Luka Doncic had in Dallas since he made his debut in 2018, and that's been regardless of whatever the hell he's been eating.