Trump Calls Luka Dončić Trade the Worst in NBA History
The American Airlines Center has seen its share of boos. On Wednesday night, they weren’t for the visiting team.
Standing on the Mavericks’ home floor, Donald Trump turned a political rally into an open critique of one of the most polarizing moves in recent NBA history: Dallas trading Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers.
He didn’t hold back.
“I must tell you, I don't understand the trade,” Trump told the crowd in Dallas. “That trade is... What do I know about basketball? I would say that 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.”
The line landed. In this city, it still hits a nerve.
A franchise-altering gamble
On Feb. 2, 2025, the Mavericks detonated the foundation of their franchise. In a three-team deal, they sent Dončić, Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris to the Lakers. In return, Dallas received Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick.
The reaction was immediate and furious. Mavericks fans protested. Nearly everyone questioned the logic of shipping out a 26-year-old generational playmaker in his prime for an older, injury-prone star on a shorter timeline.
The fallout inside the organization came later. General manager Nico Harrison, the architect of the deal, was fired in November 2025.
Dallas tried to pivot. The lottery balls bounced their way, delivering the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. The Mavericks selected Cooper Flagg, handing the teenager the unenviable label of “new face of the franchise” before he’d played a single NBA minute.
Davis didn’t last long. One season after the blockbuster, he was on the move again, traded to the Washington Wizards. Dončić, meanwhile, continued his career in Los Angeles, the kind of scenario that haunts a fan base for decades if the banners pile up somewhere else.
The Mavericks are rebuilding. The building, though, hasn’t forgotten.
“We got to redo that deal”
Trump tapped straight into that lingering regret.
“That's not good. That wasn't good. Maybe we could redo that trade. I redo deals all the time. We got to redo,” he said, leaning into his well-worn persona as a dealmaker. “We got to redo that deal. I don't get that deal. You know some deals you understand. I understand deals, but that one I didn't quite get. Somebody from Dallas, I'm sure, can explain it to me.”
It was part punchline, part indictment. In a city still trying to talk itself into a long-term vision, he voiced the thing many Mavericks fans have never stopped thinking: how did this happen?
Chasing Babe Ruth
Trump didn’t just call the Dončić trade bad. He placed it in the same conversation as the most infamous transaction in American sports.
“You know the worst trade in the history of sports, right?” he asked the crowd. “The great Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth (for) $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 is it Luka?”
The reference needs no explanation in sporting circles. The Boston Red Sox selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees more than a century ago reshaped baseball history and cursed a franchise narrative for generations.
That’s the level of mistake Trump suggested Dallas might have made. Hyperbolic? Maybe. But that’s the point. The Dončić deal has never been treated as just another trade. It ripped out the heart of a team that had already been built around his unique brilliance.
Dallas lives with the question
Today, the Mavericks are trying to move forward with Cooper Flagg as their future and Dončić as a memory in a different jersey. The front office has changed. The roster has turned over. The marketing has shifted to the next era.
The question hasn’t.
Every time Dončić stars on a national stage, every time Flagg is measured against an impossible standard, the same doubt circles back to Dallas: did the Mavericks make a Ruth-level mistake, or will time soften one of the most shocking trades the NBA has seen?
On Wednesday night, in the middle of a political rally, Trump gave that doubt a microphone in the very arena where it all began.
