More than a year later, the Luka Doncic trade is still catching strays, this time from the President of the United States.
Donald Trump took aim at the Dallas Mavericks’ infamous decision to trade Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers while speaking at a midterm convention at American Airlines Center in Dallas.
And despite admitting basketball isn’t exactly his area of expertise, Trump couldn’t understand what the Mavericks were thinking.
“This is a big Dallas Mavericks team, which is going to be hopefully good. I must tell you, I don’t understand the trade,” Trump said. “That trade is not — what do I know about basketball? I would say it’s 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.”
Trump then spoke of Boston Red Sox selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1919, a move that became one of the most infamous transactions in American sports history.
“No, actually, ok, you know the worst trade in the history of sports, right?,” he said. “The great Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth, 19-year old pitcher, for a 36 year old third baseman and $100,000. At that time that was like $10 million I guess, because Boston needed money. So Babe will always be the worst trade.”
But Trump wasn’t finished.
He then jokingly offered the Mavericks a solution that some Dallas fans would probably be more than happy to accept.
“But uh… is it Luka? That’s not a good – that wasn’t good,” Trump said. “Maybe we could redo that trade. I redo deals all the time. We gotta redo that deal. I don’t get that deal.”
The Mavericks stunned the basketball world in February 2025 when they sent Doncic to the Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick.
And the return has only looked worse with time, with Davis having already been moved on to the Washington Wizards.
Even with Flagg emerging as the franchise’s new cornerstone, the decision to trade Doncic isn’t getting any easier to explain.
Just ask the President.