The emotions of sports, highlighted by a trade

I am a diehard Dallas Mavericks fan. I have lived in Dallas since I was three and absolutely love sports, especially basketball. This naturally led me to adopt the Mavericks as my team, into which I would invest time, money, and emotion. I loved watching Dirk Nowitzki play, watching him and the 2011 Mavericks win the title, and seeing him retire with the Mavericks and receive all the love the city offers.

Likewise, I loved watching Luka Doncic play basketball. I loved seeing him hit seemingly impossible game-winning shots, leading the 2024 Mavericks to an improbable run to the Finals, and knowing there were still so many more moments to come. At least, I thought there were.

Luka was unexpectedly traded to the Los Angeles Lakers on the night of February 1. A move is considered to be the most shocking in the history of sports. Teams don’t move on from a 25-year-old superstar who wishes to play for your team. A move like that would ruin the product the team can put out on the court, and more importantly, it would ruin the relationship between the franchise and its fans by stabbing them in the back.

To understand why trading Luka was such a stab in the back for fans, I first want to discuss why I love sports so much. To me, sports are a story. That’s what it boils down to: a story, but not just one story; it’s a whole web of stories all being told simultaneously. There’s the story of Luka Doncic; will he be able to prove himself as one of the greatest ever to play? Can he grab that elusive championship that has evaded many other great players? There’s the story of the Mavericks. Can the Mavericks put together a championship team? How will they manage the old and new adversities that arise every single season? There’s the story of a single season. Which players will rise and which will falter? Which team will prove to be the best?

Sports is an interconnected story with characters, plots, and conclusions. The most significant difference between the story of sports and any other book you can find on the shelf is the number of authors and the lack of consensus. Each player and each team is writing their own story, and each has a different idea of what a happy ending would look like. As a fan, you can choose which authors you like and which you don’t. Then you start to see what a happy ending would look like in your story. The problem is that a happy ending is far from guaranteed.

This is a valid reason for somebody not to be a sports fan, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. I love that I can’t count on a happy ending because that lack of a guarantee makes it so much more rewarding when it does happen. Most recently, I watched the Texas Rangers win the World Series. The joy of seeing a team that I thought would never win in my lifetime win is unmatched. It still gives me goosebumps just writing about 2 years later. That feeling is unlike anything I’ve ever felt, and it’s something I would love to feel again.

By trading Luka, the Mavericks took that hope and that optimism that this story would have the happiest of endings and burned that story to the ground. The Mavericks took every Mavericks fan’s favorite character of their most beloved series and killed them in the most unceremonious way possible. Completely backstabbing the fan base and reacting in the worst way possible afterwards, causing every fan to stop and wonder if they can ever reread another book by that author.

Have you ever had someone you love, one of the most important people in your life, totally out of the blue, entirely and irreversibly backstab you? Then, over the next few days, you start to forgive them. You think that maybe they didn’t consider the consequences, that perhaps they had the best interest in mind, and that they just had an inexplicably narrow view. Then, as you’re doing that, they get upset with you because their actions hurt you.

You don’t know what to do because you don’t know if you can ever stop caring about them, but you wish you could. The pain hurts, and you’re starting to see that staying around this person will only lead to more and more of the same. This is what every Mavericks fan is going through right now. This is also why a player like Luka has never been and probably never will be traded like this again.

I still love sports. I still love basketball, I still love Luka Doncic, and, for better or worse, I still love the Mavericks. This trade is the most betrayed I’ve ever felt in my life, and in a lot of ways, that’s a blessing. However, it’s also not something that should be taken lightly because sports are awesome. There’s a lot of emotion that comes with them, both good and bad, and that’s what ultimately makes sports so great.