Is this the end of the Luka era in Dallas?

Fresh off a year of making his first Western Conference Finals the Mavericks didn’t even make the Play-In tournament and their star play Luka Doncic may request a trade from the Mavericks.

He’s been with the team since 2018 and with him the Mavericks have only made it outside the first-round only once. Is Luka ready to leave the Mavericks despite signing a super big contract just last year?

So the main problem with the team is they can’t build a championship team around Luka. The team had a magical run to the Western Conference finals just last year and they looked like a team of the future, but now they look like a team on a downward spiral.

You could say one of the biggest reasons why the Mavericks are where they at now is because they didn’t resign Jalen Brunson last offseason. In the playoffs he became a starter and averaged 21.6 points, 4.7 Rbs, and 3.7 Ast while helping Luka take the team far. The team lowballed Jalen and then he signed with the New York Knicks and he’s rising up as one of the most dependable point guards in the entire league.

The team this year without Jalen downright struggled even though Luka was putting up big numbers. Even with Luka balling the team was still losing, so Mark Cuban made a move to try to bring the Mavericks back into the title picture and that move has backfired.

Before the trade deadline the team traded for Kyrie Irving who one of the best point guards in the league to try and take some of the scoring pressure off of Luka and form a dynamic duo with the team. The move looked good on paper, but I knew it wasn’t going to work because as a team you won’t win when you have two ball dominant guys running the team.

After the results people were blaming Kyrie for why the team looked so bad and I disagree and would say it’s Luka’s fault because as great and talented as he is he doesn’t have the right leadership and can’t get the job done when it matters the most. This offseason he signed a super max rookie extension of five-years, $207 million and the first season of the deal is possibly his worst year while as the leader of the team.

So with the Mavericks officially out of the playoff hunt the two main questions they’ll have going into the off season is: will Kyrie Irving resign with the team and the bigger question is Luka Doncic going to request a trade from the team. If he does request a trade and he does get dealt to another team it may be time for the team to start a rebuild and try to start from scratch.