As Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison walked through the tunnel before his team played the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday, fans praised him.
The only thing is, those fans were wearing purple and gold.
“Good trade, Nico!” yelled one fan. Added another: “We love you, Nico!”
On Tuesday, for the first time since Harrison shocked the NBA world by dealing Luka Doncic to the Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis in early February, Doncic played against his former team. As expected, it was a playoff-like atmosphere.
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Harrison was heckled. Heck, in a way, Davis was, too. As the injured-Davis (adductor strain) shot around before the game, Serbian music blared through the speakers at Crypto.com Arena, a twist of the knife for a player in his homecoming who had spent 5 1/2 seasons in Los Angeles, helping lead the Lakers to a championship in 2020. (Doncic, of course, happened to be warming up at the same time as Davis on the other side of the court.)
All eyes were on Doncic.
Before Tuesday’s game, Mavericks coach Jason Kidd called Doncic “the game plan,” likening him to “a Picasso.” And after the Lakers’ 107-99 win over the Mavericks, Kyrie Irving acknowledged playing against his former teammate was “awkward as s—t.”
Doncic played with fire, finishing with his first triple-double as a Laker, including 19 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists. He also had three steals and two blocked shots.
But the experience of playing against his former team just over three weeks after being completely stunned — and, honestly, embarrassed — that the Mavericks were willing to deal a 25-year-old who was widely considered a top-three talent left him feeling exhausted, both mentally and physically.
“The closure is going to take a while, I think,” Doncic said. “It’s not ideal. But, like I said, I’m glad this game is over. There was a lot of emotions.”
Doncic didn’t sleep much ahead of Tuesday’s game. Really, all of February was just a giant whirlwind. The five-time All-Star and five-time All-NBA player, who led his team to the NBA Finals last season, was seemingly the most-talked about player in all of sports the last few weeks.
His conditioning was called into question. The Mavericks had done something so unprecedented by trading a superstar of his caliber at his age that it left people wondering what really happened behind the scenes. Why in the world were the Mavericks willing to part with him?
Kidd hopes that Doncic won’t be dragged down by any of that.
“Sometimes you can’t listen to the noise,” Kidd said. “The great ones can block the noise out and overcome what’s maybe true or what’s maybe not true. Everybody has an angle, everybody has a conspiracy theory.”
Kidd said that Doncic is “going to be one of the best players in the world,” adding that despite any questions over his coachability, the superstar took constructive criticism well, especially about his defense and pacing.
“Sometimes we’re asking as a coach, ‘Can you participate on the defensive end?'” Kidd said. “And he did. And he put us in the Western Conference Finals (in 2022), he helped us get to the Western Conference Finals again (in 2024) and then the Finals (in 2024). Just understanding, can we play faster? And he agreed. He was up for that challenge, and we played faster. He loves to be coached. He loves to be told the truth.”
As for Doncic, he has just put all the criticism on his mental bulletin board. During Lakers’ media day, Doncic called the negative chatter about his conditioning “a motive,” adding, “I know it’s not true.”
More than anything, Doncic has been focused on trying to find his rhythm after returning two weeks ago from a calf strain that sidelined him for 22 games. After a rocky first couple of games with the Lakers, Doncic looked like himself in a win over Denver on Sunday, finishing with 32 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. And against the Mavericks, with so much pressure on him, he shined again.
Tuesday’s game was a dogfight, with the score tied at 91-91 midway through the fourth quarter. LeBron James took over in the fourth quarter, scoring 16 of his 27 points in that period to give the Lakers their 15th win in their last 19 games. The James-Doncic connection is already thrilling, and included them switching off carving through lanes and disrupting defenses with cross-court passes and great finishes.
James, who’s no stranger to the emotions of huge games against former teams or high-pressure situations, was impressed by the way Doncic dealt with it all heading into Tuesday.
“They went to the Finals, all that stuff,” James said. “He’s grown from being an 18, 19-year-old kid to now a 25-year-old man with a family and all that stuff. So you kind of grow into a family with the franchise and when you move on or they move on from you, it’s very emotional, obviously. It’s very taxing. It’s probably a lot of things that were going on in his head that probably didn’t even involve the game itself. And with that said, I thought he handled it tremendously.”
As for Doncic, the night was just strange.
Doncic said he didn’t see Harrison (who was standing on the court) during warmups. But Lakers fans made sure to show their appreciation for him, chanting “Thank you, Nico” as Doncic shot free throws. Harrison, of course, isn’t as popular in Dallas, where Mavericks fans have been openly grieving the trade by bringing a casket to American Airlines Center and holding up a sign that said “Fire Nico.”
The one thing that Doncic did lament after the game was how odd it felt to play against his former teammates.
“It was just so weird, the moments,” Doncic said. “Felt like I didn’t know what I was doing.”
After the game, Doncic called Irving his “hermano,” or brother in Spanish. And Irving, who considered himself a protector of sorts for Doncic after being traded to the Mavericks in Feb. 2023, said he felt for his former teammate the last few weeks.
“As a protective big brother, I was just looking at him from afar, sending him texts, making sure he’s good,” said Irving, who had a game-high 35 points, seven rebounds and four assists. “And when I saw him, I expected him to be over that hill, as we like to call it, just getting over the rejection or getting over the anger. Sometimes it can lead to hatred. Sometimes it can lead to uncertainty. So, I’m just proud of him for the way he’s just gone out there and played.”
The grieving process is clearly still fresh for Doncic.
He’s not over the shock of it all. In fact, the Mavericks trading him felt like a form of rejection that he had never before experienced. Not even any heartbreak from failed relationships could compare to The Trade.
“That was different,” Doncic acknowledged.
But he took a big step forward Tuesday. He’s moving on. He’s playing great. And now, the highly anticipated and fraught reunion between him and his former team is behind him.
Kidd likened Doncic’s journey to a train. Regardless of how big or stressful the moment seemed Tuesday, it was gone in a flash.
The train keeps moving.
And now Doncic needs to focus on the next stop.
Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.
Luka Doncic
Los Angeles Lakers
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