It is not easy work for anyone to defend the Dallas Mavericks' confusing decision to ship Luka Doncic out of town in return for Anthony Davis. It's become even more difficult with Davis immediately going down with an injury and Doncic looking like he could turn the Los Angeles Lakers to a serious title contender. It takes something special for someone to stand up and say "hey, wait a minute" in response to the copious amount of criticism being aimed at Nico Harrison.
The suggestion that, already, the Mavericks' trade for Davis is a "failure" will do the trick. Which is exactly the ground Get Up explored on Wednesday.
"How could it possibly be a failure," Alan Hahn wondered aloud. "How many games have they played—three? I'm with Monica. Give it time. You have to see it play out before you start calling it an absolute failure. There's no absolute here. Anthony Davis is not 40 years old at the end of his career. This is not Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol."
"But you traded him to win the championship," Brian Custer pushed back. "The man is hurt. He played two quarters.
"I love Anthony Davis but you guys always tell me your best ability is availibility." Custer continued. "He's never available. His nickname was Street Clothes. You made a trade for a man and he gave you a double-double in two quarters and got hurt. And now you don't even know when he's coming back."
All in all it there was a lot of passion on display and it's unclear what was resolved. But that's television.
A happy compromise here would be for everyone to agree that to this point, yes, the trade has been a failure while conceding that it's not useful or important at all to make any declarations at this early stage unless they can be adjusted in the future when there is actually data to look at.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as 'Get Up' Turns Chaotic After Suggestion Anthony Davis Trade Is Already a Failure.
