The Dallas Mavericks deciding to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers remains one of the biggest talking points around the NBA. It was arguably the most stunning move in NBA history, as a team gave up on a 25-year-old megastar and got a lackluster package in return.
Many people around the league criticized the Mavericks for their approach to the trade. Even if some people could understand how the team got to the point where they were thinking about moving on from Doncic, locking in on only trading him to the Lakers and not getting every possible asset for him was poor team management.
Among those not pleased with the trade is former Dallas Mavericks coach Don Nelson, and he's planning a unique protest of the trade that happened four months ago.
Nelson will be given the Chuck Daly Lifetime Award during Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night, and while he's being given the award, he'll be wearing a pair of Luka Doncic 4s, the Slovenian's latest signature shoe with Jordan Brand.
"Luka is my dear friend," Nelson told Marc Stein. "And to protest his being traded from the Mavericks to L.A., I'm going to wear a pair of his new shoes. I wanted to mention that.
"My philosophy was always, when you've got a great player, he's yours for a lifetime. You don't get rid of great players. When that happened, I was pretty disappointed."
Don Nelson is already at the Finals in OKC doing interviews about his Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award from the @NBA_Coaches.
Here he is wearing Luka 4s in the Gone Fishing colorway in a nod to the fish ties he wore as a coach.
And here’s our chat: https://t.co/LW6Y68XiBy https://t.co/CV1MMB03nW pic.twitter.com/XGkQn0fn51— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 8, 2025
Although Nelson retired from coaching in 2010, his son, Donnie, was the Mavericks' general manager when the team pulled off the draft-night trade for Doncic. Both Nelsons saw the entirety of Dirk Nowitzki's career play out in Dallas and likely thought Doncic would do the same.
The Chuck Daly Lifetime Award is one given by the National Basketball Coaches Association to a longtime coach for their life in basketball and for a "standard of integrity, competitive excellence and tireless promotion" of the game. Recent winners include Rudy Tomjanovich, Rick Adelman, and Larry Brown.
Don Nelson was named GM and head coach of the Mavericks in 1997 and would be with the team until 2005, leading them through the early years of the Dirk Nowitzki era. He left to go back to the Golden State Warriors for the second time, where he led the Warriors over the Mavs with the infamous 1-8 "We Believe" upset in Nowitzki's MVP year.
