A trade was made recently in the NBA that shook the entire earth to its core because of who was involved in such a trade.
If you don’t follow the NBA or are reading this years after I wrote it in 2025, then, well, let me paint the picture:
A few years ago, the Dallas Mavericks, who were owned by Mark Cuban at the time, drafted Luka Doncic, a 19-year-old Slovakian megastar with a list of accomplishments that rivals any athlete’s—even Tiger Woods (who won his first Masters at the ripe age of 21).
At age 13, Luka officially became a “pro” and played for Real Madrid. By 17, he made Slovakia's national team, and, a year later, led them to its first EuroBasket title. This is a massive deal for a country as small as Slovakia. (To give you a glimpse at how small it is, I misspelled it as “Slovokia” earlier and Google Docs didn’t notice.)
Slovakia ain’t supposed to even make the EuroBasket tournament, let alone win it. But they did because of a 17-year-old Luka.
And the following year, he led Madrid to the EuroBasket title and won the EuroLeague MVP and Final Four MVP in the process.
This all happened before he turned 19!
Well, when he turned 19, he joined the NBA draft. He went third overall. And he instantly became one of the best players in the league—kind of like LeBron did.
Luka, like LeBron, won rookie of the year his first year. And he’s dominated the game in the six years since:
* He’s a 5x all-star (the only time he wasn’t an all-star was his rookie season).
* He’s a 5x member of the All-NBA First Team, the most illustrious award that isn’t an MVP (for comparison, Steph Curry is arguably the best or second best point guard in NBA history—and Steph only has made the All-NBA First Team four times in his career, one less than Luka despite playing for 10 more seasons than Luka at the time of writing).
* He was the scoring champion last season
* He’s led the Mavericks to two Conference Finals and one Finals (and at one point, he averaged more points in playoff basketball than Michael Jordan did, though he fell under Jordan’s average last year).
* And, perhaps most important, is he’s one of three generational players in the NBA.
Almost no media pundit, basketball fan, or even NBA general manager would disagree that Luka is one of the top 3 players in the league—and he might be the best player. All at the young age of 26—while the other two “generational players” are nearing their 30s.
In other words:
Luka, by all accounts, is one of the best “assets” you can have if you own an NBA team.
Everyone considered him one of the few players who were truly untradeable in the league.
And yet…
A couple of days ago, for seemingly little to no reason at all (besides the fact that Luka carries maybe 10 extra pounds on his person than he should), the Mavericks decided to trade Luka to the Lakers to play alongside LeBron.
It was a trade that didn’t make sense. In fact, it could go down as the single worst trade in sports history. But it happened. It shocked the NBA (including superstars like LeBron himself, Kevin Durant, and Anthony Edwards to name a few).
And it put every player in the NBA on notice:
Nobody is safe.
If Luka can get traded, ANYBODY can get traded.
He’s done nothing but dominate and win since he was 16 years old. And ten years later, he still hasn’t even entered his prime.
And yet, he got traded.
Many business ramifications embedded in this cautionary tale too, for those wise enough to spot’em.
Moral of the story?
Security doesn't exist - even if you’re one of the best of what you do like Luka was.
And acting as if security exists is a foolish game to play.
But one of the most effective ways you can add security to your business, prevent your customers from skipping to a competitor, and encourage more and more bottom line growth is by having an email list that looks forward to your emails every time they pop up in their inbox.
If’n you need help on this end, hit reply, and let’s find a time to chat.
John
Comments