Tag: Dallas Mavericks

Social media reacts to Grizzlies dominant win over Mavs: ‘The Dallas Pelicans’

The Memphis Grizzlies will face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the playoffs after a 120-106 win against the Dallas Mavericks. Anthony Davis had a monster game with 40 points but suffered another injury in the fourth quarter and …

The Memphis Grizzlies will face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the playoffs after a 120-106 win against the Dallas Mavericks. Anthony Davis had a monster game with 40 points but suffered another injury in the fourth quarter and didn’t finish the game.

Jaren Jackson Jr. led the home team with 24 points while Ja Morant, playing through an ankle sprain, ended up with 22. Desmond Bane added 22 and Zach Edey had 15 points and 11 rebounds.

See the reactions from social media below:

Social media reacts to Kyrie Irving’s season-ending injury: ‘Worst year in history for any sports franchise’

Dallas can’t catch a break. Kyrie Irving suffered a torn ACL in his left knee against the Kings, thus effectively ending his season and crushing the Mavericks’ hopes of returning to the NBA Finals. Actually, it would be a miracle if they made the …

Dallas can’t catch a break. Kyrie Irving suffered a torn ACL in his left knee against the Kings, thus effectively ending his season and crushing the Mavericks’ hopes of returning to the NBA Finals. Actually, it would be a miracle if they made the playoffs. Mavs fans will feel even more miserable after parting with Luka Doncic in February.

See the reactions to this devastating news for the Texas franchise on social media:

The Mavericks tried to subtly drop Anthony Davis’s bleak injury update near the end of the Super Bowl

The Mavericks really wanted Anthony Davis’s new injury to get lost in the shuffle.

Late Sunday night in the sports world was momentous.

The Philadelphia Eagles were in the process of securing their second Super Bowl in franchise history in dominant fashion with hundreds of millions of people watching at home, and (whispers, very, very, very discretely) the Dallas Mavericks revealed that Anthony Davis would be out indefinitely with a groin injury.

Wait, wait, hold on, what?

That’s right. As the biggest event in American sports was winding down, the Mavericks not-so-subtly revealed that the newly-acquired Davis — the guy Dallas mortgaged its entire future for in exchange for the generational Luka Doncic — might miss a month of time because of an injury.

And in a supposed championship or bust season, no less.

Man, talk about a brazen news dump:

I’ll give the Mavericks credit. I, too, would have taken the opportunity to share that my new hopeful franchise player — acquired in a much-maligned trade of a beloved face of the team — wouldn’t be seen in live game action again for a month in the middle of something like the Super Bowl.

Sometimes, it’s good to take the easy way out!

However, everyone’s still going to notice when you do. That is an unfortunate and evergreen caveat.

When will Luka Doncic make his debut for the Lakers? What we know about his injury.

When exactly can we see Luka on the Lakers?

Update on Feb. 6: JJ Redick said that if it is not Saturday (Feb. 8), then it will be Monday (Feb. 10). The game on Sat. is now flexed to ESPN, but the latest reporting from Marc Stein suggests the Monday game is now his new target date.  

The Los Angeles Lakers shocked the world by trading for Luka Doncic and many fans cannot wait to see his first game with the franchise.

But what some may not remember is that Doncic is currently injured and has not actually played in a game since December 25. That is one of the reasons why Doncic did not actually make the NBA All-Star Game this season.

Doncic is currently dealing with a left calf strain injury but has also missed time due to other lingering issues including his wrist. However, after more than a month on the sidelines, he is expected to return soon.

In fact, according to ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins, his first game could come as soon as Saturday against the Pacers in Los Angeles. This would give Doncic three games before the All-Star break, including two against the Jazz.

This is aligned with reporting from Marc Stein, who indicated that Doncic was targeting a Feb. 8 return before he was traded from the Mavericks.

Another potential date is Feb. 10 at home against the Jazz, per Marc J. Spears.

Other reporting from both ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Shams Charania suggested that he could wait until after the All-Star break for his first game with Los Angeles.

Their first game after the All-Star break is Feb. 19 against Charlotte in Los Angeles. If he chose this path, it would allow him an eight-week recovery window for his calf strain.

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Rob Pelinka actually thanked the Mavericks GM for the Luka Doncic trade

Of course Rob Pelinka would thank Nico Harrison for letting him steal his lunch money.

Los Angeles Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka and Dallas Mavericks GM Nico Harrison almost certainly agree on a key fact: their mutual late friend Kobe Bryant would’ve wanted Luka Doncic in L.A.

So they pulled the strings to get him there.

To start the Lakers’ introductory press conference of Doncic on Tuesday morning, Pelinka made sure to thank one key person for gifting Los Angeles yet another all-time great talent. That’s right.

He actually thanked the Mavericks and Harrison for facilitating the Doncic trade. Man, that’s like a bully thanking you for giving them your lunch money. That’s like an old-timey robber being appreciative that they had the opportunity to commit a massive heist of a moving train.

“Thank you for letting me rob you blind,” Pelinka … probably.

Honestly, I don’t blame Pelinka for feeling a little cocky, though:

When have you ever seen a sports executive publicly thank the other team’s representative like this?

Of course Pelinka would thank Harrison for gifting him a current top-three player. Of course, Pelinka admitted that Lakers owner Jeanie Buss was in the loop of the trade from the beginning, while Harrison kept mostly everything a secret from the Mavericks. Harrison made acquiring a generational talent for pennies on the dollar so simple and so easy!

Pelinka absolutely knew he was pulling off the NBA heist (trade) of the century from the start here. Harrison was all too happy to oblige.

Man, I’d be thanking him like this, too.

Anti-Jerry: NBA’s Mavs show Cowboys fans the flaws of a professional GM

Nico Harrison showed local fans of Dallas sports the downside of the GM conundrum this weekend. | From ReidDHanson

Dallas Cowboys fans have not been pleased with the front office of their franchise. In the minds of many, the frugality of the team’s top decision makers has led to too many missed opportunities over the years. It’s a trend that appears to be continuing into 2025, and a resentment that’s been unrivaled in the local DFW fanbase.

That is, until the Dallas Mavericks told Jerry Jones to hold their beer.

The Mavericks recently made news for all the wrong reasons this week. They took a generational talent, just entering his prime, and flipped him for a player who’s great, but, by most accounts, past his prime. Other side dishes were included in this smorgasbord of lopsidedness but for the most part it was a trade of Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis.

The Mavericks GM, Nico Harrison, defended the trade citing things like culture, fit, defense and conditioning as reasons why the trade was made. These issues may have very well existed, but to most fans, they hardly justified trading away a perennial MVP candidate. It was a move that made Jones and the Cowboys look good. Considering what’s happened for them over the past two seasons, that’s saying something.

Jones has been on a mission of austerity as of late. While he’s re-signed his must-have superstars, he’s been essentially asset stripping his roster by parting ways with costly second and third-tier players, rounding out the roster, coaching staff, and support personnel the cheapest way possible.

A reason why he would do such a thing is a fatal flaw within the structure of the team. Jones isn’t just the general manager and chief decision maker but he’s also the owner. What he doesn’t spend on players, coaches, and support personnel, he gets to keep in some ways. That’s not something any other GM in the NFL can say.

Other GMs are given a budget and are fairly determined to spend to the limits of that budget in the name of winning. Unlike Jones, they can be fired if they fall short of expectations therefore, they have to make every season count. The demand to win now is significant, so understandably the life expectancy of a GM is fairly low. Based on these same motivating forces, the Cowboys have no comparable urgency to win and every financial reason to save.

Up until this week, Harrison was regarded as one of the best GMs in the NBA. The former Nike executive has stacked the Dallas roster and made the 2024-2025 Mavericks one of the deepest and most talented teams in the league. He’s gone to the Conference Finals twice and the Finals once in a short time and done so with wildly different rosters. Even with Harrison’s success he feels the pressure to win now and has wasted no time making moves to achieve that goal.

Unlike Jones, Harrison doesn’t have the benefit of eternal job security on his side and that has presumably led to a highly controversial roster move. When asked about how the Doncic trade affects the Mavericks in the long-term Harrison showed why even a traditional GM structure has flaws.

“[Anthony Davis] fits right along with our timeframe to win now. And win in the future. In the future to me is three or four years from now,” Harrison clarified to reporters. “The future, 10 years from now, I don’t know. I think they’ll probably bury me and J [Kidd] by then. Or we bury ourselves.”

Harrison isn’t a fan of the Mavericks, but rather he’s an employee. He’s not married to the team like the fanbase is. There’s a good chance he’ll be gone in three or four years, making Doncic’s long-term value unimportant to him. Fans are critical of the move because they’ll still be Mavericks fans for the next 10 years. After Harrison is gone and Davis is retired, they’ll still be watching Doncic dominate the NBA and it will probably be extremely painful. That day could realistically be just five years away.

This kind of thing isn’t an issue for Jones and the Cowboys. Jones loves his Cowboys franchise and if anything, he cares too much about the long-term good of the team and not enough about the urgency of the here and now. He probably would have cashed on the Doncic brand in perpetuity. He probably wouldn’t have surrounded him the same depth of talent as Harrison has done, but he would have kept him.

If fans had to pick which is GM setup is better, most would probably point to the traditional type of GM like the Mavericks have. But as Harrison just showed everyone, even that has its problems because most GMs aren’t concerned about life after they’re gone. For universal Dallas fans, it’s the worst of both worlds this year. Guess it’s a good time to be a Stars fan.

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Chandler Parsons revealed Mark Cuban’s shocked reaction to the Luka Doncic trade with the Lakers

Mark Cuban was all of us.

When Mark Cuban purchased a majority stake in the Mavericks back in 2000, he was among the more involved owners in the league. It would be difficult to imagine any major move taking place without Cuban at least being aware of it.

But since Cuban sold his majority share of the team in 2023, Cuban has taken a significant step back. So much so that under the current ownership structure, he had no idea that the Mavericks were about the trade away franchise star Luka Doncic.

He was just as confused as the rest of us.

In FanDuels’ Run It Back NBA show, Chandler Parsons — a former Mavericks player — revealed that he texted Cuban about the trade. And Cuban’s reaction was so appropriate.

He said:

“I texted him, and I said, ‘I’m so confused.’ And he wrote back, ‘That makes two of us.'”

It would be safe to assume that the trade wasn’t happening if Cuban was still in charge, but times have clearly changed in Dallas.

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LOOK: Mavs fans protest with mock funeral after Luka Doncic trade to Lakers

Many Dallas Mavericks fans flocked to the American Airlines Center before Sunday’s NHL game between the Dallas Stars and the Columbus Blue Jackets to protest after learning their franchise player Luka Doncic had been traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis through a sudden, single-team negotiation. Some of them even brought a fake coffin to symbolize that their love for the team had died after the shocking move.

Check out the pictures that, in some years, might be remembered as historic.

Even the Grammys poked fun at the Mavericks with a Luka Doncic trade joke

Everyone is getting in on the trade jokes.

The 67th Grammy Awards did not pass up on an opportunity to make a joke at the expense of the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night. Fans everywhere were stunned Saturday night into Sunday morning to find out that the Mavs traded Luka Doncic to the Lakers. The groundbreaking move was the talk of the sports world, and now it’s officially moved over to pop culture.

Returning from a commercial break, comedian Jim Gaffigan was hosting instead of Trevor Noah. “During the break, I don’t know how to say this,” Gaffigan said. “Trevor Noah was traded to the Dallas Mavericks.”

The joke got a lot of laughs, and Noah did end up returning to the stage thankfully!

Luka Doncic shared a heartfelt message to Mavericks fans after stunning trade to the Lakers

What a classy message from Luka Doncic.

The Dallas Mavericks upended the sports world on Saturday night by trading Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. It’s a move that still doesn’t feel real, even approaching 24 hours later.

On Sunday, Doncic shared an incredibly touching message to Mavericks fans on social media, breaking his silence officially after the stunning deal. In the message, posted to Twitter and Instagram, Doncic had nothing but good things to say about the Dallas community and Mavericks fans.

DONCIC MADNESS: 6 hypothetical trades that would have seemed impossible before the Luka Doncic deal.

Interestingly enough, though, Doncic didn’t mention the Mavericks organization specifically anywhere in his message.

What a classy gesture to Mavericks fans by Doncic.

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