Jalen Brunson is still finding ways to make the Mavericks regret how things ended, and this time he’s doing it with Luka Dončić right alongside him.
Brunson and Dončić were named the NBA Western and Eastern Conference Players of the Week for Nov. 2-8, a reminder that both former Dallas draft picks are still shaping the league in very different places. Brunson earned the Eastern Conference honor after already ending the Knicks’ championship drought in June, while Dončić took the Western Conference award for the Lakers.
For Mavericks fans, seeing that pairing on the same weekly graphic had to sting. Both players were drafted in 2018 and once shared the same Dallas future, but that path fell apart in a way the franchise is still trying to live down.
Brunson would have stayed in Dallas in 2021 if the Mavericks had offered him the four-year, $55 million deal he was eligible for. They passed twice. When the team finally came back to him after the 2022 trade deadline, he said he was worth more, and he eventually signed the four-year, $104 million contract with the Knicks instead.
The Brunson miss already looks bad in hindsight, but it pales next to the Dončić trade. Dallas sent Dončić to the Lakers and got Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and a 2029 first-round pick back. For a player who had been less than a year removed from leading the Mavericks to the NBA Finals, that return is hard to defend.
Brunson has become one of the biggest free-agent steals in NBA history. The Dončić deal, meanwhile, has been branded as the worst trade of all time, unless you’re a Lakers fan.
Dallas did land Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, and he’s already been described as phenomenal. But even that doesn’t wipe away the way Brunson and Dončić left their marks on the franchise. If anything, it raises the pressure on the Mavericks to win a championship before Flagg’s career is over.
There’s also the uncomfortable reality that the same person who approved the Dončić trade, Patrick Dumont, is the controlling owner. So while Mavericks fans can enjoy watching Flagg for now, they still can’t fully escape the ghosts of Brunson and Dončić.
And if the Knicks get their way, Brunson will keep adding to the pain by pushing New York right back to where it was last June, with its star point guard leading the charge. Dallas had its chance to keep him. New York is plenty happy it didn’t.
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