Getty

Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic.

Jeanie Buss’s tenure as Los Angeles Lakers owner has been a mixed bag. The team hit hard times immediately after she took over ownership, and outside of the championship season in 2019-20, the Lakers have been very inconsistent.

However, the future is finally bright for Los Angeles with the in-season acquisition of superstar guard Luka Doncic. The Lakers went from being a low-end playoff team to championship contenders overnight.

They are also set up for the future, as Doncic is only 26. The trade with the Dallas Mavericks was one of the most surprising in NBA history. There weren’t any rumors leaked to the media that Dallas was shopping the star.

According to Buss, the deal wouldn’t have gone through if people had known about it.

“I have a feeling if it did leak, the trade probably wouldn’t have happened, and for so many different reasons,” Buss said on SiriusXM NBA Radio. “People working against us, that would not want to see that trade happen. Keeping things under wraps is really, really important.

“Our circle is tight because over the years, we did have problems with things leaking out and that did disrupt plans and caused some problems in our basketball operations. … Finally we got rid of the problem. Now we can keep things under wraps when we choose to. … I really learned a lesson there that you’ve always got to do what’s best for the organization because everybody’s got their angle in how they want something to go.”

Would Leak Have Killed the Deal?

Considering how Mavericks fans have responded to the trade, it’s safe to say that they would’ve pushed back if there were rumors leaked that they were shopping Doncic. He was the face of the franchise and wasn’t even a year removed from taking them to the NBA Finals.

It’s possible that the pushback to Doncic trade rumors would’ve been so great that Dallas would’ve gotten cold feet.

Adam Silver Defends Mavericks

The Mavericks have not come out of the trade looking good. They got hit with injuries almost immediately and are now in the play-in tournament fighting for the eighth seed.

There has been much speculation about why the Mavericks made the deal, and some have suggested nefarious intent. NBA commissioner Adam Silver pushed back against that notion.

“The only place where I feel defensive on behalf of the Dallas Mavericks and new ownership there that there were some suggestions early on that the trade wasn’t done for basketball reasons,” Silver said on the “Pat McAfee Show.” “That, somehow, the new owner didn’t want to pay a maximum salary or was focused on … real-estate development or something else. The only thing I can say, and I feel very confident about this knowing Patrick Dumont, who is the governor of the team, and the people involved, they believed that they were making the best trade on behalf of the Dallas Mavericks. Whether that turns out to be true, again, only time will tell.

“I’ve known Nico for a long time, Nico Harrison. He was a longtime executive at Nike before he was at the Dallas Mavericks. Again, whether he made the right trade, he’s a really decent person. I know he’s trying to do the best he can to run that franchise.”