On February 1, no one could have foreseen that the entire landscape of the NBA was going to change. That was when Shams Charania of ESPN posted that the Los Angeles Lakers had pulled off a trade for Luka Doncic,

New Mavericks CEO Rick Welts has publicly discussed the Luka Dončić trade that sent him from Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers. In an interview with Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News, he addressed how he "probably underestimated the reaction" the fans had to the recent Dončić trade.