‘Craziest’ turnaround of fortune puts Mavs on course to Flagg
DALLAS (AP)– Dallas Mavericks CEO Rick Welts wasn’t thinking even for a second about Cooper Flagg when he started a staff conference before the draft lottery by saying the club was entering the most important offseason in franchise history.The longtime
NBA executive and relatively brand-new leader on the business side of the Mavs was thinking about the lingering fallout of the extensively reviled Luka Doncic trade, not the club turning a 1.8% opportunity into winning the rights to draft the teenaged star from Duke. Dallas is set to make that choice Wednesday night.Advertisement “Never ever
, ever did any person in
our organization ever even state what would take place if we win. That’s a wild-goose chase,” Welts told The Associated Press just recently.”Like, it boggles the mind. It was hard to even get your head around.”The self-inflicted wounds were numerous after general manager Nico Harrison’s spectacular choice to send Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis in early February.Fans were incensed. Season-ticket holders were canceling. Prospective brand-new sponsors were telling Welts they ‘d need to think of it.Just like that, the Mavs had a vision to sell of a possible superstar who could one day be the face of the
franchise– as Doncic was, and fellow European super star Dirk Nowitzki before him. Just like that, despair turned to wish for lots of individuals, including those under Welts who had actually spent weeks handling the wrath of a rejected fan base.Advertisement “It’s got to be the craziest reversal of fortune,”Welts said. “It would match any in the league’s history.”Before the Doncic trade, Welts had already made a
choice to raise season-ticket costs. He told the AP he needed to back off on the size of the increase as he saw the visceral reaction unfold.Welts has seen plenty in nearly 50 years with the NBA, including time in the league office and stints with Phoenix and Golden State. Magic Johnson’s HIV statement. Allegations of extensive substance abuse in the early 1980s, when he states there was an extensive belief that the league would fail.That’s not to say the Doncic fallout didn’t have an extensive effect on the 72-year-old Welts, who had come out of retirement to change Cynt Marshall simply a month and a half previously. It simply indicates he has weathered a couple of storms.Advertisement And now the Naismith Basketball
Hall of Famer isn’t so sure he’s ever seen the sun come back out so rapidly. “The thing that I learned through all of this experience was what I understood resembled this amazing emotional tie between this team and these fans was even more powerful than I believe anyone who hadn’t lived
here and belonged of it could ever envision,”Welts said.” Simply the profusion of pure delight and the idea
of a generational player that might alter our fortunes for the next 15 years would land with us by pure luck.”Harrison’s commonly panned choice on Doncic was intensified by an injury to Davis in his Dallas launching, followed by Kyrie Irving’s season-ending knee injury a month later. The Mavs made the play-in tournament and won at Sacramento before their season– mercifully, maybe– ended in a loss at Memphis with the No. 8 seed at stake.Part of what made the Doncic offer so hard to believe was dumping a 25-year-old superstar in his prime nine months after leading Dallas to the NBA Finals for the very first time in 13 years. The Mavs lost to Boston in five games last June.Advertisement Harrison’s thinking was focusing on defense, and his belief that Davis and Irving were a sufficient tandem to keep Dallas as a champion competitor. Flagg’s potential considered that notion an increase. “I feel like I’m a broken record, but the team that we meant to put on the flooring, which you guys saw for 2 1/2 quarters, that’s a championship-caliber group,”Harrison stated.”And so you might
not like it, but that’s the reality, it is.”Welts, who believes the Mavs have work to do to bring their basketball and service sides together, will invest plenty of time during the early days of the Flagg age sharing his vision for a new arena.It’s a big factor Welts took the job, after investing 7 years with Golden State on an arena plan that moved the Warriors throughout the bay to San Francisco from Oakland. He states all the talks are focused on keeping the group in Dallas.Advertisement While the casino-centered Adelson and Dumont families of Las Vegas, in the middle of their second complete year as owners of the Mavs, desired betting to be part of the formula for a new arena, the political truths in Texas have moved the focus far from that concept for now.There’s a new focus for Welts in what appears certain will be the last stop in an eventful NBA career: building whatever around another potentially generational star after the Mavs rejected the one they had.
“Don’t make this sound like I’m suggesting that everyone is forgiven,”Welts said.”Luka will always be a huge part of what this organization is. However for a large number of fans, it is a path– it’s not a pathway, it’s like a four-lane highway into being able to appreciate the Mavericks the way they appreciated the Mavericks before. “___ AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA