Luka Doncic’s two-word answer to pressing concern will grind Mavs fans' gears

The Dallas Mavericks are in the midst of a complete identity crisis, as Dallas just elected to trade Quentin Grimes and a 2025 second-round pick to the Philadelphia 76ers for Caleb Martin. This comes merely two days after Luka Doncic was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis in perhaps the most massive and controversial trade in sports history.

It’s without a doubt that Dallas making a play on Grimes’ contract was a possibility heading into this trade deadline, and while this move definitely wasn’t shocking whatsoever after what analysts and fans witnessed on Saturday night, the continuity on this Mavericks roster is truly dirt poor at the moment.

Grimes had a rough start to his tenure in Dallas, but the 24-year-old guard flashed a lot of potential as a future elite point-of-attack defender, and Grimes blossomed offensively in Dallas over this recent stretch arguably more so than any other place in his career.

Martin will come in as a surefire versatile 3-and-D wing who has amassed lots of playoff experience in high-intensity moments, but it would be remiss to say that he’s even marginally better than Grimes at this stage in his career. Time will tell if Dallas makes another move before the trade deadline at 2 p.m. CDT on Thursday, as Grimes leaving only increases the notion that Dallas needs more ball handling, and this was overall a very neutral move at first glance by Nico Harrison and the Mavs.

Doncic was fully prepared to sign Dallas' supermax this summer

This move happened just minutes after Doncic’s introductory press conference with the Lakers, so needless to say Mavericks fans have been feeling a nonstop mix of emotions since Saturday night, and it doesn’t appear like that will change whatsoever given some of Doncic’s quotes from this presser.

Doncic’s presser was filled with quotes that accurately reflected most of the reporting on this crazy scenario thus far, that being that Doncic was blindsided by this trade and there was a lack of communication between him and Harrison about the trade.

Easily the most painstaking comment that Doncic made in this presser was a two-word answer that he gave to Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News, as Townsend asked Doncic if he or his camp gave the Mavericks any indication that he wouldn’t sign the five-year $345 million supermax extension he was eligible for this summer.

“Absolutely not,” Doncic remarked earlier today. “Easy answer.”

Based on all previous reports of this situation, this gave Mavericks fans confirmation over one of their worst fears when it comes to how Harrison operated this deal, as he traded Doncic before any sort of financial crisis with Doncic’s contract was actually imminent.

It’s been mentioned ad nauseam that Doncic’s conditioning issues and the subsequent effects that had on his injury history are not ideal for a young superstar, but he isn’t even in his prime yet and Dallas could’ve waited till the summer to open up a massive bidding war on Doncic if they didn’t think he could be their centerpiece moving forward.

Making a trade midseason of this magnitude is bound to make fans as well as players and people within Dallas’ organization emotional and distraught, and waiting till the summer when there would’ve been a much bigger coping period with no games being played would’ve been the far smarter move by Harrison.

Obviously, Doncic’s massive supermax could’ve financially handicapped the Mavericks if it was increasingly apparent that it would take some miracle to fix his conditioning woes over the next season or two.

Harrison fabricated that Doncic needed to be traded as quickly as possible in his head though, and didn’t consult any other talented basketball minds on if this would be a good deal.

The only plausible explanation for why Harrison did this so early was that he feared Doncic’s trade market could get gouged if it became open information that Dallas wouldn’t offer him the extension, and he likely wanted to clear the civil unrest that would arise from this deal sooner rather than later.

However, Mavericks fans don’t look like they are cooling off anytime soon, and Harrison clearly didn’t accurately gauge Doncic’s trade value whatsoever anyway, so fans getting this confirmation that Doncic almost certainly would’ve signed the supermax deal that Dallas could’ve offered in the offseason is an absolute bummer.