The Dallas Mavericks’ decision to trade away face-of-the-franchise Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers left many fans looking for answers.
The Mavs front office seemed to make their case for the trade pretty clearly through the media—general manager Nico Harrison said he believes defense wins championships, and the acquisition of Anthony Davis gave the team a defense that could push for a title right now. Further, the team made clear that they had concerns about handing Doncic a supermax when they were constantly worried about his conditioning heading into the season.
But for some fans, these reasons were not enough. One theory that was floated and quickly spread across the internet was that the Doncic trade was part of an elaborate plan from the team’s new ownership group to tank the team, thus making the threat of a potential move to Las Vegas more realistic, and in the long run, legalize gambling in the state of Texas.
Premise #11: the Adelsons didn’t trade Luka to the Lakers for old Unibrow Davis, they traded Luka for a gun they can hold to the head of the #txlege: “Authorize our Mavs-centered casino or we’re off to Vegas baby, and the NBA won’t say no.”
— Christopher Kratovil (@chris_kratovil) February 2, 2025
If that sounds like a lot of steps, well, welcome to the world of NBA conspiracy theories.
While there are aspects of the theory that are easy to latch on to—the Adelson family, which bought the team two years ago, is in the casino business, and would obviously love build more money printers in Dallas—Occam’s razor is that new ownership saw the price tag of a $350 million supermax and got a bit of sticker shock.
On Sunday, team governor Patrick Dumont did his best to quell any lingering beliefs that the Doncic trade stemmed from such nefarious motivations.
“The Dallas Mavericks are not moving to Las Vegas,” Dumont told The Dallas Morning News. “There is no question in that. That is the answer, unequivocally. The Dallas Mavericks are the Dallas Mavericks and they will be in Dallas.”
Dumont, described by The Dallas Morning News as “fiery, passionate and blunt” in the interview, hammered this point home.
“I’m not sure where this is coming from. I appreciate people asking. Our family happens to live in Las Vegas, but we have investments all over the world,” Dumont said. “And the Dallas Mavericks is the team we bought. We had options to buy other teams in the past, but Dallas was the city that we wanted to be in, and that’s where it’s going to be.”
Through three quarters of his debut in Dallas, Davis’s jump to the Mavericks looked like it was working out, despite the protests happening outside the stadium from fans still reeling from Doncic’s departure.
But Davis suffered an injury late in the game that is now expected to see him sidelined for weeks. How the Mavericks fare once he’s back in the team’s lineup and pushing for the playoffs will go a long way in silencing the doubts of anyone who questioned the trade, or if things go poorly, making the critics even louder.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Mavs Ownership Shuts Down Conspiracy Theories About Franchise Relocation to Vegas.
