DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS: Basketball trade throws fandom into question

As I laid down for the night last Saturday, I checked my phone and immediately shot right back out of that pre-slumber state.

The Dallas Mavericks, fresh off a NBA finals appearance, with one of the league’s top five players, decided to trade that player for still murky reasons.

In what will go down as maybe the biggest trade in NBA history, Luka Doncic was traded to the Lakers for Anthony Davis. The reaction has been universal, as everyone assumed when they first read about the trade ESPN reporter Shams Charania had his social media hacked.

Only after a clarifying “Yes, this is real,” did people start reacting.

The basketball justification is questionable, but letting go of a franchise superstar out of nowhere when he hasn’t demanded a trade is unprecedented.

For a non-basketball fan, there is only one comparable trade in sports history that can compare to the shock and fan horror Mavericks fans are feeling now, and that is the Wayne Gretzky trade.

Listening to Dallas fans anguish on podcasts, questioning if they even want to remain a fan of the team, has me thinking there must have been fans in Edmonton in the summer of 1988 grappling with similar questions.

Fans are recounting stories of shedding tears, or struggling to break the news to their young children.

Even the Gretzky trade isn’t a good comparable, because at least Edmonton fans were a little on alert with rumours swirling before the move was announced. I do think the calibre of player is in line. Basketball is a game where a single player can dominate like no other major sport, but if there was one player to challenge the idea of that in hockey, it would be Gretzky.

For fans grappling with those emotions, hearing Mavericks brass badmouth and question their 25-year-old hero on the way out may be too much to handle as well.

In 1988, Oilers owner Peter Pocklington, who ostensibly decided on the trade to grab $15 million American from the Kings was frank with his fans.

“We are not replacing Wayne Gretzky in this trade. You cannot replace Wayne Gretzky,” Pocklington said following the deal.

The post-trade rumours about Gretzky’s wife demanding the trade and calling Gretzky difficult to work with probably ring very true to Mavericks fans right now.

For Dallas fans in mourning, maybe I’m painting too sad a picture. As I’m sure Winnipeg fans of the era remember, even without Gretzky, Edmonton went on to win a Stanley Cup in 1990.