Mavs follow incredibly bad with horrifically stupid...

Following the Luka Doncic trade, the Dallas Mavericks insult, belittle, and muzzle their fan base, while publicly trashing the generational icon they shipped away.

Mavs GM Nico Harrison (left) with Owner Patrick Dumont

Luka Doncic returns to NBA action tonight.

A week ago, that sentence, reported on the air on a local radio sports ticker, would have been welcome news to the Dallas sports community. Today it’s another violent blow to a shaken fanbase.

For the #MFFL (Mavs Fans For Life) community, today is as dark as it gets. Because Luka Doncic, their guy, the guy they all believed would one day have a statue next to Dirk and Mo on the plaza, will be making his debut with the Los Angeles Lakers. Tonight, Mavs fans all; men, women, children from across the world, if they can stomach it, will watch “their Luka” in a Lakers uniform. They will not see him in Mavs colors again.

It’s a very sad day for Dallas Mavericks fans.

For Luka Doncic, at the very least, he was summarily screwed out of $100M, and jerked out of his home without a moment’s notice. Reports of him recently buying a new house in the community only adds to the sadness. I believe he had no idea any of this was remotely possible.

A week ago, this was unthinkable. Now it’s reality. And the fan base is hurting. Big time hurting.

And the worst part? The Dallas Mavericks don’t care. In fact, they’ve gone out of their way to show exactly how little regard this new ownership group (and GM) have for their fanbase, and for the player who led them to the 2024 NBA Finals, and led them in the NBA finals in most scoring categories. And they keep doubling down on the Lazy Luka narrative and that now they have players who can - get them into the NBA Finals?

If Mavericks ownership regards their fans at all, it is only with contempt.

Samuel Vela’s twitter post Saturday. The Mavericks wouldn’t let him in the building because this shirt was deemed “Offensive”.

The trade was one thing - and we’ll get to that too. But the way this organization has mishandled the blowback (which apparently they didn’t think was gonna be a thing…) is disrespectful and disgusting. The way they’ve treated their fans - is “Offensive.”

Here’s what I’ve gleaned is the message from the team to the fans since the deal was made;

• Fuck off

• Luka was fat and out of shape

• We will not be accountable to any of you. Who do you think you are?

And because they’re such sleazy cowards, they leave a lot of the explaining to others inside and outside of their organization. Some team adjacent media aren’t even bothering to hide their intimacy with these corrupt pillagers; they’ve traded actual reporting for daily work as stenographers and parrot company lines. They attack other media for not falling in line with them or their storylines. This type of reporting, these types of relationships, sadly, are everywhere in sports.

My old colleague and friend Mark Followill was used as a shield at the introductory press conference for the players coming in. They were too scared to face objective reporters. Mark is a good soldier and a good man. They put him in a bad spot, and I’m gonna guess they didn’t even think about what they were asking him to do. I’m a guy who’s had the job like that telling you how it usually is.

The arena workers, these wonderful people, many of whom I created deep bonds with over the years while calling Dallas Stars games at the building, were asked to turn on the people they have real relationships with - the fans. These jobs are second jobs for most of them, they work so hard, they’re tired - but they always smile with, speak with, celebrate and commiserate with everyone in the building.

There are only a few things I miss - but I miss all of those people. The workers. Some became real friends. All care deeply about being there.

But by all accounts arena staff and security people were the ones who were told to ask people to remove shirts, or hats, and to not speak or chant derogatorily toward ownership. Or the GM.

These “snowflake” executives are apparently so scared of “hearing” any dissent, or having anyone question them. If (gasp) Nico Harrison had to see t-shirts in the stands that weren’t reverential to him and the owners, what? The world stops spinning? Unfortunately we seem to be in an age of the powerful shutting down or attempting to shutdown opposition voices. Shutting down you. Us. Fans. We saw it Saturday.

They don’t want to own the trade. They wouldn’t deliver the message themselves and have the executive team man the doors, greet the fans, offer kind words, and let them grieve together, however they needed to do that. No empathy at all from this bunch.

No brains either; likely this is being at least partially handled by some expensive outside PR firm. In my experience, those kinds of outfits are wrong way more than right on strategy. If the Mavericks had let the fans get it out - and it won’t be just one game - but if they face it this will fade and they can then start the healing and work to bring everyone back together around a team that they think is even better now after the trade.

Instead, they decided to muzzle their fans and customers. How chickenshit is that?

I’ve worked in professional sports for over 40 years. I wish I could tell you that this isn’t typical sports executive behavior. Because while this is on a level of its own, the behavior and mindset of these pricks is extremely typical.

But few things compare to this. And their front man - this Patrick Dumont person - I get PTSD just looking at him. I’ve never met him - but I know this “out of shape” guy with the bad hair and the frumpy suit who thinks he’s the shit. Too well.

This is a hit piece. Continue at your own discretion.