The Dallas Mavericks Had Two Hall of Famers and Wasted Both

The Dallas Mavericks just watched Jalen Brunson win Finals MVP — 32.6 points a game, 45 in the clincher, unanimous on all 11 ballots — after letting him walk for nothing four years ago.

Then they traded Luka Doncic and finished 26-56.

Two Hall of Famers. One front office. Total catastrophe.

Start with Brunson, because the Brunson story is the one that deserves to be read out loud in a courtroom. The Mavs offered him a 4-year, $55.5 million extension. His agents relayed back that he’d sign a 5-year, $87 million deal and go home happy. The Mavs passed. Brunson then signed a 4-year, $104 million max contract with the Knicks.

Marc Stein reported that Brunson’s camp “basically laughed at them” at the $55.5 million offer. Hard to argue.

Mark Cuban went on the “House of Haymaker” podcast on June 3rd and said, “We didn’t see JB as what he would become. We didn’t know his game was that good.” That’s the owner of the team admitting, post-championship, that they miscalculated the guy who just went for 32.6 a night in the Finals. Rick Brunson — Jalen’s father, who was a Mavs assistant coach during all of this — had a simpler take after the Knicks won it: “Tell Mark Cuban thank you.”

At the parade, Jalen kept it short. “When you prove them wrong, you don’t have to say [anything] to them.”

Here is the part that makes the Brunson miscalculation genuinely hard to explain away: this wasn’t a fluke development. Brunson had posted 21.6 points per game in the 2022 playoffs before the Mavs lowballed him. They watched him do that. Then offered $55.5 million.

The extension talks weren’t happening in a vacuum — they had the tape. The Mavs front office looked at a player coming off a breakout playoff run and decided he was worth a third of what he eventually signed for elsewhere. That’s not a scouting failure. That’s a valuation failure, and it’s the kind that haunts franchises for a decade.

Then they traded Luka Doncic.

On February 2, 2025, the Mavs sent the best player in franchise history to the Lakers in a three-team deal. They got back Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and a 2029 first-round pick. Nico Harrison’s stated rationale: “I believe that defense wins championships.”

Davis played 20 games with Dallas before injuring his hand on January 8, 2026. The Mavs traded him to the Washington Wizards on February 4, 2026.

Harrison was fired in November 2025 after Dallas started 3-8. The Mavs finished 26-56 — twelfth in the West — and didn’t make the Play-In.

Defense wins championships, but you have to actually play games first.

The Brunson thing was bad. The Luka thing was historic. Doing both is something else entirely — a franchise actively working to dismantle itself over the course of three years while the players they misjudged and discarded went out and won championships.

Cuban said he apologizes to Jalen. He’s got more apologizing to do.