Although the emergence of Cooper Flagg has made the pill much easier to swallow, Dallas Mavericks fans are still in disbelief that the team traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. Nico Harrison has since been fired from his post as general manager, and the team recently cut their losses from that disastrous trade by sending Anthony Davis to the Washington Wizards.
In the aftermath of the Doncic trade, fans were left wondering why on Earth Dallas would make such an inexplicable move. After the team lucked into Flagg in the draft lottery, a conspiracy theory arose that said that the league front office instructed Harrison and the Mavericks to send Doncic to the Lakers, promising the team the first overall draft pick in return.
Now, sports journalist Pablo Torre is providing some credence to that speculation.
“I’ll tell you that I remember I was at an event, and I spoke to two NBA owners. This was the day after the NBA lottery. And those two owners were both like, ‘This was obviously fixed.’ I’m not saying that it was fixed for the Mavs. I’m simply saying that it’s not just you, Will, and people on the Internet, who are saying, ‘This seems fixed to me, and I believe it to be so,'” said Torre on the Chapo Trap House, per Pro Football Network.
The theory suggests that the NBA wanted to get Doncic to a bigger market in Los Angeles and give the Lakers another superstar to transition into for their post-LeBron James years.
Meanwhile, Flagg is already looking like a burgeoning superstar in his own right, showing off his impressive combination of size, athleticism, and defensive instincts to burst onto the scene as one of the best young players in the league today.
In any case, the Mavericks will next take the floor on Friday evening vs the Minnesota Timberwolves.
