But at the time of the deal, when Dallas acquired a package headlined by Anthony Davis in exchange for the cornerstone who’d just led the franchise to the NBA Finals the previous season, Dončić faced plenty of rumors about what went wrong to prompt Mavericks and general manager Nico Harrison to make such a seismic move.

After the Dončić trade went down, it became clear that Cuban didn't hold the same power he had wielded for two decades in Dallas.

The Dallas Mavericks’ decision to trade Luka Doncic away remains one of the most confounding ones in the history of professional sports, if not the outright most confusing one. Nevertheless, star players get traded all the time in professional sports.