{"id":2138025,"date":"2026-09-10T15:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2138025"},"modified":"2026-09-10T15:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:44:14","slug":"trump-calls-luka-doncic-trade-one-of-the-worst-in-sports-history-suggests-mavericks-redo-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2138025","title":{"rendered":"Trump calls Luka Don\u010di\u0107 trade one of the worst in sports history, suggests Mavericks \u2018redo\u2019 deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"Article_ContentContainer__jBNW3 article-content-container bodytext1\">\n<p>President Donald Trump on Wednesday weighed in on the Dallas Mavericks\u2019 infamous Luka Don\u010di\u0107 trade, which happened over a year and a half ago.<\/p>\n<p>Trump, who spoke at the American Airlines Center in Dallas as part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/09\/us\/politics\/trump-republican-midterm-convention-gop-party.html\">the Republican midterm convention<\/a>, said the Mavericks\u2019 decision to send the perennial MVP candidate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6106196\/2025\/02\/02\/luka-doncic-trade-lakers-anthony-davis-mavericks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">to the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and one first-round pick in February 2025 \u201cmight go down as the worst trade in the history of sports.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad-container\">\n<div class=\"ad-wrapper article-treatment\">\n<div class=\"ad-slug-container\">\n<p class=\"ad-slug\">Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"mid1\" data-position=\"mid1\" class=\"ad place-ad\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThis is a big Dallas Mavericks team, which is going to be hopefully good,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI must tell you, I don\u2019t understand the trade. \u2026 I would say that\u2019s not going to go down as the greatest trade in the history of sports. It might go down as the worst trade in the history of sports.\u201d<\/p>\n<div data-ath-video-stream=\"CrNqh2moX2PCa2g\">\n<div class=\"VideoHost_Root__QeM_i\">\n<div class=\"VideoHost_VideoWidth__XjNKI VideoHost_Portrait__XBaJC\">\n<div class=\"VideoTitleFrame_Root__AGckL\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"VideoTitleFrame_Title__npf3B\">Have Lakers built Luka a contending roster?<\/div>\n<div class=\"VideoTitleFrame_Authors__jxyYV\">Dan Woike and Jeshua Kidd<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"VideoTitleFrame_VideoWrapper__Xgp47\">\n<div class=\"AspectRatioBox_root__AKv5b\" style=\"aspect-ratio:9 \/ 16;max-height:min(100%)\">\n<div class=\"AspectRatioBox_inner__86C_2\" style=\"aspect-ratio:9 \/ 16\">\n<div class=\"VideoStreamPlayer_GridStack__2H0p2\"><video preload=\"metadata\"><\/video><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Former Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison, who orchestrated the trade, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6794592\/2025\/11\/11\/nico-harrison-fired-mavericks-nba\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was fired nine months after making the deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"follows-within-article-root\" class=\"follows-within-article-container\"><\/div>\n<p>    {&#8220;endpoint&#8221;:&#8221;https:\/\/api-prd-nyt.theathletic.com\/graphql&#8221;,&#8221;wpBaseUrl&#8221;:&#8221;https:\/\/theathletic.com&#8221;,&#8221;sessionVerificationEndpoint&#8221;:&#8221;https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/session-verification\/&#8221;,&#8221;graphicUploadsCDN&#8221;:&#8221;https:\/\/graphics-cdn.theathletic.com\/dir&#8221;}<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe we could redo that trade,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI redo deals all the time. \u2026 I understand deals. But that one, I didn\u2019t quite get. Somebody from Dallas, I\u2019m sure, can explain it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Trump professed Wednesday that he doesn\u2019t pay close attention to the NBA \u2014 saying, \u201cWhat do I know about basketball?\u201d \u2014 he does have close relationships with multiple NBA owners, including Miriam Adelson, who purchased the Mavericks from Mark Cuban in December 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Adelson donated $250 million to help Trump defeat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. In an appearance on stage alongside Trump in December 2025, Adelson said that she would donate another $250 million if Trump considered running for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/31\/us\/politics\/trump-presidential-term-limits.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an unconstitutional third term<\/a> in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI met (former Harvard law professor) Alan Dershowitz,\u201d Adelson said. \u201cAnd he said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/politics\/elections\/trump-told-by-alan-dershowitz-constitutionality-of-third-term-is-unclear-33133eb8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">the legal thing about four more years<\/a>. And I say, \u2018Alan, I agree with you.\u2019 So we can do it. Think about it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"article-pickem\">\n<p>New York Knicks owner James Dolan has also financially backed Trump\u2019s political ventures. In June, Trump accepted Dolan\u2019s invite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7343354\/2026\/06\/08\/trump-nba-finals-knicks-spurs-game-3\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">to attend the New York Knicks\u2019 game<\/a> against the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals, making him the first sitting U.S. president to attend an NBA Finals game.<\/p>\n<p>After criticizing the Don\u010dic trade, Trump then clarified that he didn\u2019t consider it the worst trade in professional sports. In his mind, that distinction goes to the Babe Ruth trade in 1919, when the Boston Red Sox agreed to send the pitcher and slugger to the New York Yankees for $100,000.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt that time, that was like $10 million, I guess,\u201d Trump said. \u201cBecause Boston needed money. Babe will always be the worst trade.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump on Wednesday weighed in on the Dallas Mavericks\u2019 infamous Luka Don\u010di\u0107 trade, which happened over a year and a half ago. Trump, who spoke at the American Airlines Center in Dallas as part of the Republican midterm convention, said the Mavericks\u2019 decision to send the perennial MVP candidate to the Los Angeles [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-2138025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2138025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2138025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2138025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2138025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2138025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2138025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}