The Los Angeles Lakers did not have the result they would have wanted in the 2024-25 season. For a while, they could always find comfort in the highway robbery they committed this season when they stole Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks.
There is a lot less comfort to be found in that situation now after a mind-boggling stroke of luck at the NBA Draft Lottery. The Mavericks were somehow rewarded for their incompetence, landing the first overall pick in the 2025 draft.
The Lakers took everything from the Mavericks
The Mavericks only had a 1.8 percent chance to land the first overall pick in the NBA Draft. Dallas saw the Atlanta Hawks jump from the 10th-best odds in the 2024 NBA Draft Lottery to number one pick and told them, 'Hold my beer.' The optimism may be ready to fill the American Airlines Center again.
Dallas came into this season as NBA title contenders. Even a magic eight ball would have had a difficult time predicting the Mavericks in the position of holding the number one pick in this year's draft.
Of course, everyone in Los Angeles knows why that was the case. The Mavericks handed over their franchise player on a silver platter to the Lakers when Nico Harrison pulled the trigger on the Doncic trade.
The Lakers stole a top five player in the world from the Mavericks and watched everything crash and burn in Dallas. The injuries kept piling on and it resulted in Jason Kidd's team missing the NBA Playoffs altogether.
Harrison was somehow rewarded for making the worst possible decision he could have done. Now, the Mavericks general manager can look forward to another potential future superstar walking into the building and absolving him of his sins.
Mavericks fans everywhere will hope Cooper Flagg pans out as great as some of the NBA Draft scouts think he can be. Flagg has an opportunity to quickly establish himself as a beloved fan favorite after becoming a more than considerable consolation prize for giving away a top five player.
Meanwhile, the Lakers suffered a setback with the first-round exit against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Most signs are still confidently pointing towards Doncic re-upping with the Lakers for the long haul, giving Los Angeles a much brighter present and future than they had beforehand.
However, it no longer feels like the Lakers and Mavericks met at a crossroads to complete the Doncic trade and the two sides went in vastly different direction from there. There is now room for both sides to be oddly satisfied with where they ended up.
The Lakers will experience having the problems that good franchises enjoy as they work towards filling the holes around their superstar point guard in the efforts to build a championship contender this summer.
When they are back in the postseason in 2025-26, it may not be surprising to see these two sides meeting in the NBA Playoffs after the extraordinary luck the Mavericks enjoyed on Monday night.