DALLAS (WFAA; WBAP/KLIF)— Former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban reportedly urged Mavs general manager Nico Harrison not to go through with the Luka Doncic trade.
News of one of the most shocking trades in NBA history broke Feb. 1, with Doncic, Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris heading to the Los Angeles Lakers. In exchange, the Mavs got Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick from the Lakers.
There have been indicators before that Cuban was “confused” by the trade. Former Mavs player Chandler Parsons said on his show on FanDuel Sports Network that he texted Cuban about it.
“I texted [Cuban] and I said ‘I’m so confused,’ and he wrote back, ‘that makes two of us,’” Parsons said. “That kind of tells you right there he wasn’t involved.”
Sunday, though, longtime NBA insider Marc Stein reported on his Substack, The Stein Line, that Cuban was “stung” by the trade and the lack of advance notice he received about the decision to trade Doncic.
“By the time Cuban found out about the Luka-for-AD trade, it was too late. [Mavs owner Patrick] Dumont never approached for advice,” Stein wrote Sunday. “Sources say Cuban urged Harrison not to go ahead with the swap … only to find out that the deal had already been sealed with the Lakers by verbal handshake.”
When Cuban sold his majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks in November 2023 to Las Vegas casino magnate Miriam Adelson and her family, making Dumont, her son-in-law the Mavs’ governor, it was reported that Cuban would retain control over basketball operations.
Cuban remains a minority owner of the team, but the Doncic trade makes it clear that his role is more diminished than initially anticipated.
“You will surely recall, in an exclusive interview with The Stein Line in November 2024, Cuban revealed that he had been freshly forbidden this season by the NBA to take his customary seat behind the Mavericks’ bench at road games and, in a deeper cut, admitted that he did not have the say-so over basketball matters than he anticipated when the sale was agreed to with the Adelson and Dumont families,” Stein’s report continued.
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