When the Dallas Mavericks found out they had a superstar in Luka Doncic, the team wanted to do everything to pair him with the talent to put him in the best position to win an NBA championship. Things have gone from bad to worse seemingly in every season since.
The Dallas Mavericks were eliminated from playoff contention on Friday with a loss to the Chicago Bulls, and attention can now turn to the future of the franchise. There is real fear within the organization about star guard Luka Doncic’s long-term future with the team, according to Tim MacMahon of ESPN.
According to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, “fear exists” within the Mavs organization that star point guard Luka Doncic “could consider requesting a trade as soon as the summer of 2024 if Dallas doesn’t make significant progress by then” after he “publicly and privately expressed extreme frustration this season.”
Dončić is in the first season of his five-year, $215 million supermax contract. The 24-year-old Slovenian sensation said recently that he’s not happy with his situation.
“I think you can see it with me on the court. Sometimes I don’t feel it’s me. I’m just being out there,” Dončić said after Dallas’ loss to the Charlotte Hornets on March 25. “I used to have really fun, smiling on the court, but it’s just been so frustrating for a lot of reasons, not just basketball.”
Doncic only played 13 minutes in Friday night’s game against the Chicago Bulls, which Dallas went on to lose 115-112 on its home floor at American Airlines Center to fall to 38-43 this year. The team needed to win this game, but the squad was without Kyrie Irving and four other members of their regular rotation, as the organization made the decision to rest key players despite being on the cusp of falling short of the play-in tournament.
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They won’t come out and say it, but the team clearly wanted to keep their first-round pick.
This is not the situation Dallas was expecting to be in after the team acquired Irving in a blockbuster trade with the Brooklyn Nets two months ago. Mavs went 9-17 since Irving’s debut. The little defense that they had went out the door with that trade with the Nets.
The team has paired him with Kristaps Porziņģis, Jalen Brunson, and Kyrie Irving since he began his career. Nothing has worked out for them. Despite the team clearly seeing Brunson being a key piece, they would strike out in free agency and he would head to the Knicks.
The frustration within the organization and now the team may be without Luka in the near future.
