Subtitle: Beyond the court, the Dallas area now faces a catch-22. Support a team that plays with their feelings without compassion or care, or turn their shoulder and risk seeing their team leave them, all thanks to a billionaire empowered power-trip.

A couple of months ago, I urged Between the Keys readers and the greater NBA community to not get tricked into hating the players that filled the pages of their fandom with color, to avoid the urge of owners and GMs to attack the very people whose jerseys you may don, and, above all else, to hold organizations to the same standard we do for players.

I’m glad to say that people have, in fact, done that. In the same breath, I am so sorry for the Dallas Mavericks fans who have had to come face to face with that loss far sooner than they ever should have had to.

There is plenty of space to talk about the basketball of it all, the baffling move to trade a 25-year-old face of the league for a 31-year-old star, while branding the current player that your fans are most loyal to as fat and unmotivated. There’s also plenty of space to look at the narcissism on display by Nico Harrison, the likes of which I haven’t seen since David Kahn told everyone he was above criticism while doing a similar move to the much less high-caliber Al Jefferson. 

Ultimately though, neither of those are the story here. Between ego and exploitation, behind a layer of self-obsession and nefarious entitlement, there is something far worse than any of that.

The Luka Doncic trade is a brutal example of the impacts of private equity and the hells of American ownership.

Call it a conspiracy theory if you want but here are the facts:

1. Senate Joint Resolution 16 was proposed to legalize sports betting in the state of Texas.

2. The Adelsons, who made their money in the Vegas strip using betting and gambling, have hired several strong lobbyists and have contributed unprecedented amounts of donations to local politicians.

3. Joint Resolution 16 has not passed and cannot be voted on again until 2027.

4. The Adelsons bought the Mavericks with a new arena at the center of a gambling district in mind.

When it comes to business, there’s always a question of leverage. It’s why the Mavs and Lakers were so adamant about getting this trade done quickly and without any leaking of information. ESPN cited past failures in deals for Chris Paul or abandoned discussions with Golden State on LeBron James.

But leverage goes beyond the court is the world of ownership. It seems like the Mavericks ownership hope that they can deadman’s trigger a move if their gambling resolution is not passed. The Mavericks have now been stripped for future parts without their 25-year-old superstar. The fanbase has been completely disenfranchised. If the fans stop showing up, the Mavs are worth more in name as a franchise of the NBA than they are as the Dallas Mavericks.

The same thing happened to Sports Illustrated. A cornerstone of my childhood and the life of sports fans was torn asunder in pursuit of profits and blank checks. Staffs were shortened. Talent was thrown overboard. The product was watered down because people still flocked to SI. Until they didn’t, at which point, the private equity firm sold the company as a shell, a name, worth repairing only for those who loved it.

Making people fear for their jobs is ultimately what gets US bureaucracy moving, and losing the Mavs would cost Dallas lawmakers and career politicians their lifelong reputation. This situation is not unlike Sports Illustrated, or even the Seattle Supersonics before them (Mark Cuban has to be pissed, knowing that in every universe, there is a Clay Bennett to his Ackerley/Schulmann).

The worry is that it will come down to the fans, who are now faced with a lose-lose scenario. Either they can blindly support a Mavericks team that has now used their emotions and care and love as a bargaining chip to protect the pockets of their billionaire, sociopathic owner, or they can risk watching the franchise built by Dirk leave.

From the outside looking in, the current struggles of Mavs fans lay bare an unfortunate truth about the NBA. We have no power as fans. Even the illusions of control, the cancellation of season tickets, the protests outside of the American Airlines Center, are useless in the face of seeing their team leave.

The Luka Doncic trade shows that ultimately, no matter the front office talent, or generation player you draft, your team can only be as good as your owner. It’s why the Lakers have been good across multiple generations of the Buss family, why the Celtics haven’t failed even after the ghost of Red Auerbach left Boston behind, and why teams like my Timberwolves and the recently-sold Mavericks always end up one step short.

I’ll leave it here. In the winter of 2023, I gave a presentation on the history of the Bundesliga and its ownership rules, which are built to protect not just the fans, but the actual citizens of an area. No franchise has moved since reunification, and there have only been three total relocations since the 1950s. 

German football clubs are owned in majority by the actual populace of said area to the tune of a 50% plus one singular share of total ownership. Those shares cannot be sold or transferred. There is no way for a billionaire to do a power grab to gain full control. It’s about the fans.

Seattle should still have a team. Dallas should not have to worry about whether a move request is coming. Phoenix should not have had to help fund Robert Sarver’s new arena.

Owners are the all-powerful players of the NBA. When owners come in with bad intentions, they can so easily rip the joy in basketball away from millions of people at once with an unimpeachable ease.

That’s what Dallas is facing. And it is truly disgusting to see.