The Trade ... one year later
And we're still, frankly, trying to make sense of the midseason deal like no other that made Luka Dončić a Laker
The Los Angeles Lakers are in New York on this final Sunday before the Super Bowl to visit the Knicks for NBC's first installment of Sunday Night Basketball since (whoa) June 9, 2002.
Of course they are.
The matchup means Luka Dončić will be squaring off against former teammate Jalen Brunson one year to the day that the Dallas Mavericks stunningly agreed — with no forcing them to do so — to ship Dončić, Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris to Tinseltown for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and one solitary unprotected first-round draft choice in 2029.
Of course he is.
As if Mavericks fans won't be suffering enough through the occasion —wherever they are in their individual processing of what we have been referring to for months around here as The 77 Stages of Grief — they will have to do so while one of the original Big Three national networks is airing a showdown of the two All-Star starters who were drafted together by Dallas on the same night in 2018 and got away.
Except that in Luka's case, obviously, then-Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison willingly gave him away.
The only current source of salvation for the fandom in Mavsland is The Miracle of May 12th: Dallas stunningly won the NBA draft lottery for the right to draft Duke's Cooper Flagg despite holding a mere 1.8% chance to land the No. 1 overall pick.
Flagg just played the two best back-to-back games of his fledgling pro career … so that certainly helps a bit. The locals can dare to dream again after watching the 19-year-old rumble for a career-high 49 points and 10 rebounds on 20-for-29 shooting in Thursday's home loss to Charlotte, followed up by a 34-point, 12-rebound gem Saturday night in Houston against the rugged defense of Amen Thompson and Tari Eason.
Sunday and Monday, though, are sure to be days filled with sad memories and painful reflection in my city of residence as One Year Later talk grips the region with the force of last week's snow and ice storms that prevented the Mavericks from flying out to Milwaukee for a game last Sunday that has since been postponed until March.
I've written so many stories about The Trade already. Book-length chapters on it honestly. And there will surely be more to come. However …
Since we're in the middle of an active Trade Season as we speak, I deemed it wise to scale things back (as much as possible) and decided that our contribution to the One Year Later discourse would be the following 25-item collection of remembrances, news items, musings, quotes, transactional whispers, links, etc., all connected to The Trade.
A number chosen because Dončić, having racked up five consecutive All-NBA first team selections, was still just 25 when Harrison traded him without warning in the middle of the night.