Dallas. The executive director of the Dallas MavericksRick Welts, I was not thinking about a second in Cooper Flagg when a staff meeting began before the draft draw saying that the club was entering the most important low season in the history of the franchise.
The veteran executive of the NBA And relatively new leader on the commercial side of the MAVs was thinking about the persistent consequences of the widely criticized exchange of Luka Doncic, not that the club turned a probability of 1.8% to keep the first selection of the draft and the right to select the young star of Duke. Dallas is ready to make that selection on Wednesday.
“Never, ever, no one in our organization even mentioned what would happen if we won. That is a waste of time.”Welts told The Associated Press recently. “It’s amazing. It was even difficult to assimilate it.”
The self -inflicted wounds were numerous after the surprising decision of the general manager Nico Harrison to send Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers by Anthony Davis in early February.
The fans were outraged and even those who had fertilizers began to cancel. Possible new sponsors said they would have to think about it.
So quickly changed everything. The Mavs went from a vision to sell a potential superstar that one day could be the face of the franchise, as Doncic was, and before him, the European superstar Dirk Nowitzki to despair. And then, despair became hope for many people, including those under the command of Welts who had spent weeks dealing with the anger of fans.
“It must be the craziest fortune change,” Welts said. “It would match anyone in the history of the League.”
Before the exchange of Doncic, Welts had already made the decision to increase fertilizers. He told the AP that he had to reduce the size of the increase by seeing the visceral reaction of the fans.
Welts has seen a lot in almost 50 years with the NBA. Magic Johnson’s HIV announcement and even the accusations of widespread use of drugs in the early 1980s, when the league would be believed.
That does not mean that Doncic’s consequences did not have a deep impact on Welts, 72, who had left his retirement to replace Cynt Marshall just a month and a half before. It only means that it has overcome some storms.
And now the member of the Basketball Hall of Basketball Naismith is not so sure of ever seen the sun rise again.
“The thing I learned through all this experience was that what I knew was like this incredible emotional link between this team and these fans was even stronger than I think anyone who has not lived here and has been part of it could imagine,” Welts said.
Harrison’s widely criticized decision was aggravated by a Davis injury in his debut in Dallas, followed by the knee injury that ended the Kyrie Irving season a month later. The MAVs arrived at the Play-in tournament and won in Sacramento before their season ended with a defeat against Memphis.
The decision to get rid of Doncic was so difficult, as it was a 25 -year -old superstar at its best and nine months after taking Dallas to the NBA finals for the first time in 13 years.
Harrison’s reason was that they wanted to give priority to the defense and belief that Davis and Irving are a duo good enough to keep Dallas as a contender to the title. Flagg’s potential will help you.
“I feel that I am a scratched album, but the team that we intended to put on the court, which you saw for two and a half rooms, is a championship caliber team,” said Harrison. “And then they may not like it, but that’s the fact, it is.”
Welts, who believes that MAVs have work to do to join their basketball and business sides, will spend a lot of time during the first days of the Flagg era sharing their vision for a new sand.
There is a new approach to Welts in what seems to be with certainty the last stop in a NBA race full of events: build everything around another potentially generational star after the MAVs got rid of what they had.
