Dallas at the moment has two public enemies — Nico Harrison and Patrick Dumont. GM Harrison has an explanation already for the Luka Doncic trade that includes the Slovenian’s supposed fitness and personal habits. Dumont, on the other hand, has been less vocal. But when the hard questions were pressed on the owner, he had his own theory in line with that of Harrison’s.

“Tough decisions are never easy and a part of leadership is looking at risk and looking at all the factors of a decision and being willing to act at that time and look to the long-term and not only think about the short-term or how it may be received immediately,” said Dumont as a guest at the Real Estate Council’s Bank of Texas Speaker Series.

He then reflected on the team’s journey since last year’s trade deadline. He believes the Mavs weren’t competitive or playoff-bound. That only changed after their roster adjustments. Although the squad turned out to be more competitive and reached the NBA Finals, they couldn’t win. So the franchise focused on getting better.

Meanwhile, the other teams were improving. That’s when they decided to make the big move of trading Doncic for future success. “If you look at our roster today and who we have, we feel like we position ourselves to be incredibly competitive against the best teams in the NBA,” the majority owner added.

Earlier after the trade, Dumont took a dig at Doncic’s dedication to the sport by saying, “In my mind, the way teams win is by focus, by having the right character, by having the right culture, and having the right dedication to work as hard as possible to create a championship-winning outcome. And if you’re not doing that, you’re going to lose…. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t work. And if you don’t have that, you shouldn’t be part of the Dallas Mavericks.” And now this was enough to stir up the already rattled Dallas fans.

Social media lashes out at Patrick Dumont’s ungratefulness toward Luka Doncic

“This guy is a legit moron. You can’t speak with such confidence about things you have no concept of, truly amazing,” a furious fan wrote. With most of the Mavericks’ reliable players and starting lineup on the injury list, Dumont’s confident bragging about the team after trading Luka Doncic didn’t sit well with the fan.

Another fan highlighted with an explicit comment, “A roster for the future built around 3 injury plagued old guys.” Kyrie Irving is already out for the season due to an ACL injury, and Anthony Davis’ availability remains uncertain because of an adductor injury. And the list of injuries goes on. Only Klay Thompson is carrying the team with his leadership. So, calling the squad “incredibly competitive” is a bit too much on Dumont’s part.

Meanwhile, someone stated, “Ignorance and arrogance are a deadly combination and this organization wreaks of it.” This was in response to the way Dumont presented the situation, which seemed far from reality. On paper, the roster may appear strong, but its potential hasn’t been fully tested. Despite knowing the Mavericks’ current struggles, the majority owner’s comments came off as both ignorant and arrogant to the fan.

“Classic example: You don’t know – what you don’t know,” read one comment. They felt that Patrick Dumont had no real understanding of the current situation for the Dallas-based franchise. Without Luka Doncic, the team was already weakened, and adding Davis hasn’t helped much. He has only appeared in one game and is now on the injury list. Some even suggested that Davis should focus on fully recovering instead of suiting up now, allowing the team to be in better shape for next season, as their playoff chances this season have grown slimmer. But Dumont didn’t back down from insisting how competitive his side still was.

It wasn’t just the fans who were upset with the Mavericks even a billionaire company didn’t hold back in expressing their views on the Doncic trade, using a sarcastic tone. Evan Sidery recently reported, “Even Southwest Airlines is dunking on the Mavericks trading Luka Doncic as they announced no more free bags on flights: ‘It’s not like we traded Luka…👀'” So, the $17.8 billion company announced it would be discontinuing its policy of offering free bags. When that created a lot of buzz, they decided to send out Doncic’s message.

It has been over a month since Doncic’s departure, yet Dallas is still reeling with grief and anger. And who can blame them? He was their beloved player, their star. So, the wounds from that bitter breakup still hurt. But maybe, with time, everything will heal, because no matter how hard it is to accept, the reality has already set in and it won’t change now.