Luka Doncic and the Romance of Sports
On January 6, 1994, in the middle of one of the most disastrous seasons in NBA history, the Dallas Mavericks traded Derek Harper to the New York Knicks. I was just short of eleven years old at the time and Derek Harper was my hero. I was so devastated that I couldn’t go to school the next day and when I came back to class after the weekend, my 5th grade classmates lined up and hugged me, one by one, because they knew how much Harper meant to me.
This was my introduction to “the business of sports” and it was a difficult lesson to stomach. There is no loyalty in professional sport; not on the organization side. The team is not beholden to the players and the players are not beholden to the team. Money and personality and ego and injury and a dozen other factors get involved and it is, after all, a business so business decisions must be made. Players get traded or leave or are replaced or retire. The same goes for coaches and sometimes even owners.
The only area where loyalty has any place, or, rather, any expectation, is on the fan side. We “root for the laundry”, as the saying goes. I may become connected to the players who represent my team but at the end of the day, in most cases, I’m rooting for the name on the front of the jersey more than the name on the back. (If you’re reading this and you’re a Dallas Cowboys fan then you know what I’m talking about.) That’s the theory, anyway. The theory proved true in 1994 when I stuck with the Mavs (while also rooting for the Knicks for a while) in spite of the loss of my hero. It proved true again a decade later when the Mavs decided to let Steve Nash walk away in free agency, a bad decision that immediately looked worse when Nash won back-to-back MVPs. It proved true again in 2011 when, just after winning the title, the franchise pivoted to a free agent-focused strategy that pushed out most of the players we loved on the title team and ultimately left the franchise floundering for seven years post-title. I am a Dallas Mavericks fan, first and foremost, and it will take a great deal more than bad decisions and losing seasons to push me out. I root for the laundry.
Maybe the Luka trade is the exception to the rule. Maybe I no longer root for this particular laundry.
I’ve said before that I’m never more sure of my personal brand than when something big happens in the NBA. My phone blows up with texts from people I may not have spoken to in a year when there’s NBA news afoot. I don’t know how many texts I got between 11pm Saturday night and 11am Sunday morning but 700,000 doesn’t seem like much of an exaggeration. “Make it make sense” was the common theme of these texts. I cannot. There is no sense to be made of this. It is the worst trade in NBA history. It’s a terrible, indefensible basketball move but that’s not the important part. The important takeaway from this trade is that Nico Harrison, the new ownership group in charge of the Mavs, and by proxy the Mavs’ organization, don’t understand the people they represent. They don’t understand what makes sports great, what inspires loyalty, what makes you root for the laundry in the worst of times just as in the best of times.
Professional sports may be a business but it is a communal business. It’s a business that inspires, that creates, that furthers and nourishes community and connection. It’s a business that brings out hope, misguided though it may often be. It’s a business that makes you CARE. It’s a business that provides escape from an increasingly fractious world.
When we tune in, it’s not that we’re not aware of the politics or the cutthroat nature of the sport itself or the financial implications. But we are invited to pretend those things aren’t factors, that the people we’re watching on the court or the field or the diamond or the pitch do what they do because they love the game they’re playing and the people paying their salaries do so because they, too, love the game they’re watching. It’s a facade but it’s a noble, romantic facade and to paraphrase Moneyball, how can you not be romantic about sports?
The Mavs forgot that this week. They forgot about the romance of sport, the communal feelings sport imbues in us, the pride that comes from watching a generational talent wear YOUR team’s jersey, the sense of earned accomplishment when YOUR team and YOUR players fight through hardship to reach the top. We PARTICIPATE in the winning and the losing and maybe even more importantly, in the BUILDING. That’s particularly true of this specific fanbase more than most because we won and lost and strove and failed and BUILT and ultimately claimed glory with that one generational talent before. The love and connection between this city and Dirk Nowitzki is almost unparalleled in recent sports history. We had THAT GUY and he was OUR GUY and we stuck with him and he stuck with us and it made the title in 2011 all the more sweeter and fulfilling.
Dirk informs Maverick fandom and our relationship with Luka and somehow, Nico Harrison and the Mavs’ organization lost sight of how special it was to root for Luka. At the press conference yesterday, Nico said of the anger and frustration from Mavs fans, “When we win, I believe the frustration will go away.” And he might be right! But I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard say something to the effect of, “I’d rather never win a title with Luka than win three without him.” I’m currently thinking about that myself. Maybe that’s hyperbolic and maybe that fades with time and wins but I’m not sure it does and I’m not sure it should. Because winning is cool and great and all but there’s something special about having a THAT GUY on YOUR team and watching him night in and out and the romantic in me says that’s more important than a mercenary title could ever be. The current regime in charge of the Mavericks doesn’t believe in the romance of sports and that’s even more devastating than the trade itself.