‘They just sold everything away’

Disappointment, anger, confusion remain after deal announced

“I’m a Mavs fan through and through. 

I loved watching Luka. 

He was everything to me. 

He gave us hope. Seeing him was just spectacular. 

It was everything Dallas needed.”

   - West Dallas resident Kevin Flores

3 Feb 2025 - The Dallas Morning News

By SHAWN MCFARLAND Staff Writer 

shawn.mcfarland@dallasnews.com 

Staff writer Lia Assimakopoulos contributed to this report.

From page 1C Sometime after 1 a.m. on Sunday morning, outside The Old Monk at the intersection of Henderson and Willis avenues, Nick Hurley and Stewart Svoboda turned from bargoers into basketball analysts.Lia Assimakopoulos/staffKevin (left) and Aron Flores drove to American Airlines Center on Saturday night to sit by the Dirk Nowitzki statue in an attempt to process their emotions about the trade.

Hurley, a Los Angeles transplant, tried to rationalize the deal that landed his hometown team a Dallas icon. Svoboda, an Austin native who now lives in the Dallas area, didn’t buy his friend’s line of thought.

“This s--- broke my heart,” Svobada said. “They just sold everything away.”

The feeling was universally mutual across the city in the late hours of Saturday night and the earliest hours of Sunday morning. Mavericks fans — from the bar scene in Knoxhenderson and Lower Greenville to the front steps of American Airlines Center — grieved, processed and demanded answers in the wake of the team’s decision to trade superstar guard Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for a package centered around big man Anthony Davis.

At Stan’s Blue Note on Greenville Avenue, about an hour-and-a-half after the news broke, Dallas native Dmitri Jordanou stood outside the bar’s entrance with his arms locked into the “surrender cobra” pose above his head while he watched ESPN’S coverage of the trade on an outdoor television.

“I’m hoping to wake up from a bad dream,” Jordanou said. “You have the most talented Mavericks team in Mavericks history and you have Luka right here. It’s like, ‘Boom.’ We just went to the Finals, we finally get this team around him, it’s all right here, and then you trade him? It’s the biggest joke ever.”

The masses might’ve missed the punchline. Gabe Verona, who was born in Nashville but spent his childhood in Dallas, sat inside Stan’s with a Mavericks-branded Mitchell and Ness hat turned backward and a solemn face turned toward a set of televisions. He was asked by The Dallas Morning News where he was at the time of the trade.

“I could be on a boat in Alaska,” Verona said. “I could be on the Golden Gate bridge selling pretzels to people in traffic, or I could be here at Stan’s in Dallas — it just doesn’t make sense, it really doesn’t.”

Verona triple-checked the news — first through X, then ESPN, then CBS Sports — for confirmation. He tried to rationalize the trade and view it through the Mavericks’ lens and acknowledged that Doncic’s health and conditioning are a concern.

He considers Davis the second-best center in the league but would have preferred more first-round picks, guard Austin Reaves and, if possible, Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen as part of the three-team trade.

Dallas resident Robert Herrera, who was posted up on the opposite side of Stan’s and commiserated with his friend Kyle Tilley, conceded that there could’ve been behind-thescenes strife between Doncic and the franchise.

As of 2 a.m., that hadn’t yet been revealed.

“If there’s not?” Herrera asked rhetorically. “It’s mindboggling. It’s shocking.”

Tilley “thought it was a joke” when his friends shared the news with him via text and said it’s forced him to question the Mavericks’ direction.

“I don’t care if they win the championship this year,” the Arlington native said. “It doesn’t change the fact of what they just did. This would be like them trading — had they not won in 2011 — them turning around and trading Dirk [Nowitzki].”

Doncic had been the Mavericks’ biggest star since Nowitzki. The Mavericks erected a statue of Nowitzki outside American Airlines Center three years ago and, on Sunday morning, it became a beacon. Kevin and Aron Flores saw the trade news, put on their Doncic jerseys, left their home in West Dallas and headed straight to Victory Park. Kevin, 19, said he didn’t know how else to process his emotions.

“I didn’t want to wake up my parents,” he said. “I just came down here to let off some emotions. It hurts a lot.”

The two sat on the PNC Plaza steps under the statue of Nowitzki outside the arena, grieving the loss of another Mavericks superstar. Kevin described the feeling as painful, seeing the player he grew up watching leave Dallas for Los Angeles.

“I’m a Mavs fan through and through,” he said. “I loved watching Luka. He was everything to me. He gave us hope. Seeing him was just spectacular. It was everything Dallas needed.”

By 3 a.m., Nowitzki’s statue had been remodeled. Two posters — one which marked the Mavericks’ “time of death” as 11:23 p.m. and another that read “I’ll leave when Luka leaves — MFFL” — surrounded the “Loyalty never fades” engraving. Four beer cans, one bottle, a bouquet of flowers and a Doncic plushie were scattered about. A derogatory message directed toward Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison had been written on the ground in front of the statue.

Five fans remained outside American Airlines Center more than 31⁄2 hours after the near-midnight trade. Jake Reedy — a Chicago native who’s since adopted the Mavericks as his team and now lives near the arena — was at The Skellig in the Knox-henderson district when the trade news broke. He left the bar, returned home and ordered a batch of posters and markers on Postmates.

“It was the worst trade in sports history,” said Reedy, who made signs and handed them out to anyone who’d take one on Sunday morning. “That’s why I’m here 3 a.m. when I should be sleeping.”

Ditto for the four others. Dallas native Mike Beltran, a 21-year season ticket holder, said he felt betrayed and that “you gave someone a prime rib steak and they gave you chicken fried steak back.” Bilal Nouiouat, also a Dallas native, said that Doncic was supposed to be “the next coming of Dirk.”

“You see Nowitzki Street right there?” Nouiouat said, and pointed to the adjacent street sign. “The one right across was supposed to say Luka.”

Said Dallas native Faiz Riyas: “There’s no Dallas without Luka. The city lost its aura. When you think about Dallas, you think about Luka.”

Doncic will return to American Airlines Center as a member of the Lakers for the first time on April 9. The vigil-like arrangement will have been cleaned up by then. The initial shock of the groundbreaking transaction will have worn off.

The sentiment, almost assuredly, will remain.

“We’re going to boo the Dallas Mavericks,” Riyas said. “We’re all going to be rooting for Luka.”