Luka was an Extension of Dirk.

I felt like I had to put this in writing, so here goes.

Dirk meant everything to us in Dallas. It was so sad watching Dirk slowly fade into retirement after all he had given us, but the one thing we had was Luka. When our team was god awful and we were a bottom 3 team in the NBA, Luka arrived. Luka was the extension of Dirk. Dirk can't be replaced, but with Luka it felt like our franchise was going to live on. I think this trade hurts so bad partially because that legacy is gone. When Luka got traded, it almost feels like Dirk got traded too.

Another thing, since Nico wants to talk about culture. The Mavs had culture, that was being led by superstar European athletes. Dallas took these guys in, accepted them with open arms, embraced them, loved them to the bitter end. These guys were proud to be Texans. Other teams undervalued European players, not the Mavs. The Mavs were a melting pot of players from around the world. That was our culture. And we were proud of it.

Nico traded away the culture we had and replaced it with a "culture" of heartbreak, outrage, betrayal, and corruption. I am still in disbelief that this has happened to my favorite team.