Mavericks owner's stunning claim on Luka Doncic trade contradicts GM Nico Harrison — and reality

As part of the Bank of Texas Speaker Series from a Dallas-area real estate group, Dumont explained his motivations for the team sending Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers.

"After the trade deadline last year, we actually had the best record in basketball," Dumont told the group. "We got to the championship games, and we didn't win...We had to decide how to get better."

Dumont added, "This [the trade] was a decision for the future."

Aside from betraying his unfamiliarity with basketball by referring to the NBA Finals as the "championship games," Dumont's contention that the Mavericks made the move looking to the future, because other teams passed them, contrasts with Harrison, who considered the trade a move to "win now and in the future."

It appears that the Mavericks weren't totally sure why they traded Doncic, aside from their desire not to give him a supermax extension this summer. Harrison wanted to win now and move forward without Doncic. Dumont seems to have already given up on the team that made the 2024 "championship games," even after their offseason additions of Klay Thompson, Naji Marshall and Quentin Grimes.

If you take Dumont's comments at face value, the Mavs were looking to the future by trading 26-year-old Doncic for Anthony Davis, who recently turned 32. They followed up that move by sending the 24-year-old Grimes to the Philadelphia 76ers for 29-year-old Caleb Martin. They also received just one future first-round pick when they traded Doncic, hardly long-term thinking.

All of those plans became moot when Davis was injured in his first game with the Mavericks and Kyrie Irving suffered a season-ending ACL tear. Winning now and winning in the future both seem like a challenge.

But it's hard to believe that Dumont is familiar with NBA basketball, especially if he considered his team uncompetitive. The Mavericks made the NBA Finals a year ago, and the Western Conference finals two years earlier. Dumont didn't think the Mavericks could compete with the elite teams, even in a season where they have gone 3-1 against the league-leading Oklahoma City Thunder, who they also defeated in last year's playoffs.

Dumont may know the casino business well. He's in line to become the CEO of Las Vegas Sands, which is the casino and resort company that his late father-in-law, Sheldon Adelson, founded.

So far, he hasn't demonstrated that same expertise when it comes to NBA basketball. Perhaps worse, he doesn't seem to be on the same page as his GM.