President Donald Trump entered American Airlines Center in Dallas on Wednesday night prepared to talk about Iran, immigration, oil prices, the economy and the upcoming midterm elections.
Then, in true Trump fashion, as he stood inside the building that Luka Doncic once dazzled on a nightly basis, he reopened one of the city’s most painful wounds.
The president interrupted his nearly two-hour speech at the Republican midterm convention to offer his own assessment of the February 2025 blockbuster trade that sent Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers for a package headlined by Anthony Davis.
“I must tell you, I don’t understand the trade. That trade is not good,” Trump said.
He doubled-down.
“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 continued, before deciding Babe Ruth being shipped from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees probably still owns that particular piece of infamy.
He’s right that the Doncic-Davis deal is still considered to be one of basketball’s most shocking midseason trades. Dallas surrendered its 25-year-old franchise cornerstone only months after he carried the Mavericks to the 2024 NBA Finals. In return, Dallas received Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick.
The deal was so secretive between then general manager Nico Harrison and the Lakers’ Rob Pelinka, that no other team was even made aware that Doncic was potentially available in a trade.
It’s important to note that the Mavericks won the NBA Draft Lottery that year and selected Cooper Flagg with the first-overall pick. Nonetheless, a year later Davis was traded by Dallas to Washington in February 2026.
“Maybe we could redo that trade,” he said. “I redo deals all the time. … I understand deals. But that one, I didn’t quite get.”
Then, almost as quickly as he wandered into NBA trade-machine territory, the president returned to oil and Iran.
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