𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗠𝗣 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗕𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗜𝗥𝗘 𝗢𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗔𝗥𝗖𝗛𝗦~~𝗔𝗡 𝗡𝗕𝗔 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗣𝗜𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗬 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗢𝗥𝗬!

From the editor: With respect to the support of NFL football, Brownsville is unquestionably a Cowboys town, with Southmost going crazy after a Cowboys victory and H.E.B. cashiers wearing Cowboy jerseys on GameDay(Yes, we know Ruben O'Bell roots for the Cleveland Browns and Daniel Lenz the Minnesota Vikings).

I get the sense that the NBA's San Antonio Spurs are this city's favorite basketball team, although a few of us watch Dallas Mavericks games together at DK's Bar and Grill.

Top left: Lakers GM Rob Pelinka, Luka Doncic, Lakers Coach J.J. Redick, Top right: Dallas Mavericks majority owner, Miriam Adelson w/Donald Trump, Bottom left: Dallas Mavericks minority owner, Mark Cuban, bottom right, Patrick DuMont, Adelson's son-in-law, the Dallas Mavericks "Governor"

The recent trade of Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers has rocked the DFW Metroplex with over 1,000,000 fans exiting the Maverick's Instagram site in the last three days.  The acronym MFFL(Mav's Fan for Life) has literally lost its meaning.

The trade of Doncic, a 25 year old basketball savant, a five time All-NBA awardee, is being called the "craziest trade in NBA history," not just because Doncic was traded, but because the payback was so paltry, just one 31-year-old forward from the Lakers and a couple draft picks.

In 2023 the majority interest in the team was sold by Mark Cuban to the multi-billionaire Miriam Adelson of the Sands Corporation with vast holdings in Las Vegas, Macau and Singapore.  Miriam Adelson is clearly one of Trump's billionaire oligarchs, just behind Elon Musk and Timothy Mellon, with Adelson donating over $108M to Trump's Political Action Committee in 2024.(In 2019, Miriam Adelson suggested that a "Book of Trump" be added to the Holy Bible, cringe-worthy words to be sure.)

Adelson, admittedly not a basketball fan, bought the Mavericks as part of a plan to bring casino gambling to Texas, also buying 108 acres near the old Cowboy Stadium on which to build a casino, new arena and retail complex.

Reportedly, Adelson has been contributing to the campaigns of nearly every Republican in the Texas House of Representatives and Senate, but has not gotten a bill up for a vote on casino gambling, the real reason she set up housekeeping in Texas.

Following the Doncic trade, many Mavericks fans are voicing a conspiracy theory involving the Adelson family, current owners of the Dallas Mavericks, thinking that the illogical trade of their team's superstar is part of an effort to devalue the team to justify its relocation from Dallas to Las  Vegas. Make the team so undesirable that season tickets are cancelled, attendance drops and the Adelsons can rightfully claim the enterprise is no longer profitable in Dallas, thus a move to Las Vegas.

Miriam Adelson and son-in-law, Patrick DuMont, have come out denying they intend to move the team.  

But, longtime NBA fans have seen this scenario develop before.  In the early 2000s, the Seattle SuperSonics' ownership group, led by Howard Schultz, had sought to persuade Washington state government officials to provide $220 million in public funding to update KeyArena. 

After those efforts failed, he sold the team to the Professional Basketball Club LLC (PBC), an investment group headed by Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett. A condition of the sale was that PBC execute a "good-faith effort" to secure a suitable arena in the Seattle area for the team. 

The new owners failed to persuade local governments to pay for a new $500 million arena complex, and consequently announced that they intended to move the team to Oklahoma City. When they sought to be released from the lease that required the SuperSonics to play in KeyArena through 2010, a judge rejected the request and Seattle sued Bennett's group to enforce the lease.

On July 2, 2008, a settlement was reached: among other conditions, PBC would pay $45 million to break the lease plus $30 million if Seattle had no replacement team after five years.

In months before the settlement, Seattle officials released emails exchanged by members of Bennett's ownership group, alleging that they indicated that some members intended to move the team to Oklahoma City all along, and had not negotiated in good faith. 

As a result, Schultz sued to rescind the sale and transfer the team to a court-appointed receiver. He dropped the suit after the NBA noted that he had signed a binding contract not to sue Bennett's group and argued that his proposal would violate league ownership rules.

We're not saying Miriam Adelson et al have acted disingenuously in using the Dallas Mavericks to garner a gaming license in Texas, but while they may have acted in good faith, they've not acted competently and with one crazy decision, may have ruined a team that was Western Conference champion in 2024, only to lose to the Boston Celtics in the finals.