There's a Diabolical Theory That Dallas Mavericks' Ownership Plans to Tank The Franchise So They Can Build The World's Greatest Destination Resort Casino

On Sunday morning, a mere 12 minutes after the clock struck Groundhog's Day, hours before Punxsutawney Phil took his yearly stab at predicting the weather, news broke of what some people are calling the most shocking transaction in the history of sport. The aptly named Shams Charania (because his career is a complete sham, and the tireless work that people of his ilk do to break news minutes before anyone else brings absolutely nothing of value to the world, and if the sports news breaking industry disappeared into thin air, literally nothing would change) tweeted that the Dallas Mavericks had traded star player Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis and a fun-sized Snickers bar.

Nobody knows how, or why the Mavericks would do such a thing. No matter which way you slice it, from a basketball perspective, it doesn't make a lick of sense. Even if you want to take the stance that Luka Doncic is a big ol' alcoholic fatso who doesn't play defense. That the Mavericks know something we don't about the 6' 6" 270 lbs, possibly diabetic, five-time 1st Team NBA forward that the rest of the world doesn't. Even if Luka has quietly become so obese, that tomorrow morning he falls out of bed and goes crashing through all 16 floors of the Beverly Hills' Four Seasons. There is still no logical reason to trade a top 5 player in the NBA without fielding additional offers, or attempting to drive up the price in any way whatsoever. Something doesn't add up. I've racked by brain trying to come up with reasons.

- There's something wildly damaging to Luka Doncic's reputation that would have come to light had the Mavericks publicly shopped him around, so they quickly unloaded him on the Lakers for peanuts before the news could surface (although by this point you'd think we would have heard about it)

- Luka is out of shape to the point that he's unable to pass a legitimate physical, and the Los Angeles Lakers are the only team with a shady Hollywood doctor who's willing to turn the other cheek

- Luka has some sort of dirt on the Dallas Mavericks organization, and Luka Doncic (from Ljubljana, Slovenia) was so desperate to play in Los Angeles, California (where he can't get a super max contract and after taxes will likely lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars), that he threatened to go public with the dirt if the Mavericks didn't get the deal done.

- Luka Doncic let his visa expire and was moments away from being deported, so Mavericks GM Nico Harrison got the first sanctuary city he could think of on the line to quickly whip a deal and get Luka to Los Angeles before ICE dragged him out of his home and shipped him to Guantanamo Bay. 

- Nico Harrison got too drunk at Jerry Jones' annual Groundhog's Day Eve party and either traded Luka Doncic on a dare, or lost him in a poker game

At this point, nothing would be surprising. As nonsensical as those explanations are, they make more sense than Nico Harrison legitimately thinking the way he went about trading Luka was the best thing for his franchise. But of all the theories out there, my favorite comes from a Texas lawyer named Christopher D. Kratovil. A veteran commercial litigator consistently recognized by Super Lawyers as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Texas regardless of specialty, and lifelong Mavericks fan. He took to social media with a lengthy "15 premise" theory.

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TLDR: Dallas Mavericks new ownership does not care about basketball, and only bought the team in hopes of building a destination resort casino in America's largest untapped gambling market - The Dallas-Fort Worth area.

In order to do that, they need legislation passed in Texas to legalize casinos, sports gambling, etc., but they've had a terrible time trying to get that done.

They believe they can force Texas' hand by threatening to move the Dallas Mavericks franchise to Las Vegas, but as the franchise stands, that's not a viable threat. The Mavericks are too profitable, and have too much support from their fanbase.

But if they can tank the franchise, turn Mavericks basketball into a dog shit product, and lose support of the fans, then moving the team to Las Vegas becomes a viable proposition.

The Mavericks owners (the Adelson & Dumont families, who run the Las Vegas Sands Corporation) believe they can essentially force Texas into passing gambling legislation by threatening to kill the Dallas Mavericks. If Texas still doesn't budge, and refuses to legalize gambling, then they'll simply move the Mavericks to Las Vegas where they can build a casino overnight

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It's a hell of a theory. For a dumb brain like myself who doesn't fully understand the ins-and-outs of relocating an NBA franchise, my first question was, "If the Adelson and Dumont families truly do not care about basketball, what do they care if the Mavericks are good or bad before threatening to move them to Las Vegas?" 

I'd think it would be even more of a threat to move a successful franchise who the people of Dallas love, than a franchise who the city has more or less given up on. But in order to move a franchise, the NBA Board of Governors has to vote on it (I just now remembered the NBA calls their owners "governors"… lol). So I'd imagine the governors would never vote on the Mavericks moving to Las Vegas in their current state. But even if they did successfully tank the Mavericks franchise, the idea of an NBA expansion team in Las Vegas has already been brought to the table. An expansion team in Vegas would guarantee each NBA team hundreds of millions of dollars in distributions (which is more than a replacement expansion team in Dallas, or any other city would yield). So would they really let the Adelson's and Dumont's get away with killing basketball in Dallas so they can take the gold mine of a market that is Las Vegas for themselves, instead of adding an expansion team that everyone could all cash in on? That seems like a stretch. 

I tip my cap to the Dallas Mavericks. Whatever they're up to, it takes nuts to make a trade so phenomenally bad that theories as wild as this start to seem logical. Whatever the actual reason behind this move is, there has to be more to it than Nico Harrison's explanation of "We believe that defense wins championships". No matter what the Mavericks' front office thinks of Luka Doncic as a player, it all comes back to the fact that they didn't even bother shopping him around. Unless somebody comes forward with a legitimate reason for selling Luka to the Lakers in the middle of the night, that's general management malpractice. Even if the Mavericks win the next 3 NBA Championships, it should be a fireable offense. I'm really starting to worry we're about to learn something terrible about Luka. Unless our friend Christopher D. Kratovil Esquire is onto something with his 15 premise casino theory.