Luka Doncic's trade to the Los Angeles Lakers has sent shockwaves throughout the NBA. Not only did the Dallas Mavericks trade away their generational superstar to a conference rival, but the consensus from much of the public is that the Mavs didn't get enough back in the trade.
The move, which came at about 10PM PST on February 2, 2025, had everyone thinking that the trade was fake or that ESPN's Shams Charania was hacked.
His co-worker, ESPN's Tim MacMahon, who has spent years covering the Mavs and NBA at large, called it one of the busiest times of his life. After all, MacMahon had just completed writing a book about Luka Doncic called “The Wonder Boy: Luka Doncic and the Quest For Greatness.”
The trade shifted everything, and MacMahon recently joined ClutchPoints' show, “Sitting Courtside,” with Jerry Donatien to discuss the trade of Doncic, tease snippets from the new book, and what it was like to write a book in the middle of an NBA life that, frankly, never sleeps.
In this portion of the interview, MacMahon breaks down Mark Cuban's decision to sell the majority stake of the team to the Adelson and Dumont families. In the process, Cuban also gave up the basketball operations control he believed he was retaining.
“I'll be honest with you. So Cuban, I don't know if Cuban lied about continuing to have basketball control or was just trying to speak it into existence, but it wasn't the case, clearly,” Tim MacMahon, author of ‘The Wonder Boy' told Jerry Donatien and Tomer Azarly on an episode of ClutchPoints' Sitting Courtside. “Like, it was not the contract of the sale. And like the second the sale was done, Cuban essentially was pushed to the side of the front office discussions. Like, ‘okay, you you can weigh in all you want. We'll put it in this round file underneath the desk.’
“But this never happens if Mark Cuban has control. Cuban absolutely cherished having this guy. And look, Cuban for 21 years had Dirk. He wanted to have Luka Doncic for, he wanted 20 more. Luka's probably not playing 20 years. He said himself he'll be back in Slovenia before then. But he planned and would do everything possible to make sure that they could keep Luka in Dallas for his entire career. But with Cuban not having any control, Nico Harrison had all the power. Nico managed up and convinced Patrick Dumont that this supermax for Luka Doncic would be a bad investment.”
Mark Cuban has gone on record about the reason he no longer wanted to own a basketball team, including the strong, negative impact of social media and not wanting it to affect his kids.
“I didn't want my kids and family to have to deal with people like you,” Mark Cuban said in a back-and-forth exchange with a Mavs employee on Facebook. “I honestly got tired of the growing number of fans who became pricks on social media. People exactly like you.”
Tim MacMahon believes the trade never happens if Cuban retained basketball operations control.
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“He said [he was keeping control],” MacMahon told Donatien and Azarly. “It just wasn't true. And I'll be honest with you: When I realized that Cuban did not have basketball control anymore, I thought that was a good thing for the Dallas Mavericks. Because look man, Cuban made a ton of mistakes. I mean, yes, they won a championship with Dirk.
“I think you could say they won only one championship with Dirk. I get that. I think you can put it in that perspective.
“Like there had been a lot of personal missteps. Like we just talked about, you know, along the way with Luka Doncic. And I did feel like Cuban not being in charge there was ultimately going to be a good thing for the Mavericks. But I just never imagined that Nico Harrison would make a decision to trade the guy that everything was being built around months after you made the NBA finals.
“It's not like, ‘well, he’s got a chance to be great, but we haven't seen it yet.’ You'd seen it consistently. Five times first team all NBA selection, fresh off the finals, led the league in scoring last year. Averaged a damn-near triple double while doing it in the playoffs. And honestly, like there were times in playoffs he was struggling, he still led the league in points, rebounds, assists, steals, minutes. Never been done before.
“So it wasn't like, well, we're giving up on this guy's potential. We'll see if he ever gets there. No, he was there. He'd been there. So I just never imagined that would be the decision, especially after everything you had done — that Nico had done — was designed to make sure that Luka Doncic could be in Dallas with the belief that he had a chance to contend for championships.
“And in that process, you gave up control of your first round capital in 2027, 2028, 2029, and 2030. And now you make this move and Nico's own words, create this three-to-four year timeframe. It's tough to do the math on that and have it make sense.”
You can watch the full episode with Tim MacMahon, author of the new book “The Wonder Boy: Luka Doncic and the Quest For Greatness,” tomorrow on ClutchPoints' platforms including YouTube and Twitter.