On Monday evening, the Dallas Mavericks' season unofficially came to an end when Kyrie Irving went down with an ACL tear. The injury was the latest in a series of unfortunate events for the Mavericks that began when Nico Harrison thought it would be a good idea to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers.

When news of the trade first broke on Shams Charania's X account, many across the sports world assumed that a prankster had hacked the ESPN insider's account. Recently, former Mavericks and Lakers guard Steve Nash shared his candid initial reaction to the deal, per Josh Donaldson of Flashscore.

“Yeah, I think everybody was shocked. They clearly did an incredible job, especially in today's age, of keeping it quiet. So I think it was a surprise to everybody,” said Nash. “I think I woke up in the middle of the night to a message…I thought it was a joke, you know, and then realized it was actually real. And yeah, what a surprise.”

Even before Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving went down with injuries, the Mavericks' trade of Doncic to the Lakers was already on the short list of most puzzling decisions in the history of professional sports.

However, now that Irving is out for the season and Davis may be as well, essentially guaranteeing that the Mavericks won't compete for a title this season, the trade now looks even worse than it did a month ago.

By trading Doncic, Harrison and company were gambling that the Mavericks would win at least one, if not multiple championships in the next two to three years with Davis and Irving, or they risked earning the wrath of fans for having orchestrated the worst trade in NBA history.

Year 1 is already looking like a “no,” so unless the Mavericks are able to band together and win a championship in 2025-26, it wouldn't appear that there is any avenue for Harrison and his counterparts to avoid basketball infamy.