Dallas Mavericks Are Thriving, But Atlanta Hawks Made Right Decision Taking Trae Young Over Luka Doncic

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Luka Doncic is all of that.

While Trae Young is headed toward stardom with the Atlanta Hawks, Doncic already is there with the Dallas Mavericks.

In fact, if you go by those still rubbing their eyes over what Doncic did Sunday inside of the NBA bubble in Orlando during a playoff game against the Los Angeles Clippers (Wow), he’ll solidify his James Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame credentials by the end of this season or maybe around Halloween.

Good for Doncic and the Mavericks, but here’s the deal: If Hawks officials could jump inside of a time machine for a trip back to the NBA Draft of June 21, 2018, they should do exactly what they did back then.

Take Young over Doncic.

The Hawks used that draft’s No. 3 pick overall two summers ago for Doncic. Then they traded the guy who spent Sunday afternoon looking like the reincarnation of Dirk Nowitzki for the Mavericks’ fifth pick overall.

The Hawks also got a first-round pick to grab future starter Cam Reddish at No. 10 during the 2019 NBA Draft.

Yeah, Reddish is shaky around the edges, which means that trade remains mostly about Doncic for Young.

Yeah, Doncic crushed Young and everybody else in the voting for NBA Rookie of the Year honors (an average of 21.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6 assists per game to Young’s 19.1 points, 3.7 rebounds and 8.1 assists).

Yeah, during an ESPN poll of NBA executives about who they’d choose to build a franchise around, Doncic finished first, and Young was fourth.

Yeah, Young won’t make anybody’s all-defensive team as a 6-foot-1 point guard at 180 pounds compared to Doncic’s frame of 6-7 and 230 pounds that at least allows him to keep offensive players honest.

It’s just that, well, let’s consider a couple of other things, starting with this: Doncic joined a bunch of veterans for the Mavericks as a Slovenian native with extensive credentials after prospering for years in professional European leagues, but Young left the University of Oklahoma to join a Hawks team in the second season of a massive rebuilding project.

Here’s the biggest thing: Even though Young also could shoot and pass his way someday to a plaque in Springfield, Mass., the Hawks are better with Young over Doncic for more than just basketball reasons.

It’s about demographics.

Young is Black.

Doncic isn’t.

Atlanta is famously African American, with its background as the home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, and with its slew of hip-hop stars, and with its distinction as the hub for black entrepreneurs.

Not only that, but except for stretches during the 1980s and early 1990s, with Dominique Wilkins (a Black star and a hometown hero), the Hawks rarely have drawn well since moving from St. Louis to Atlanta in 1968. They finished 26th, 30th and 27th in average home attendance out of the NBA’s 30 teams in consecutive pre-coronavirus years through 2018-2019.

So, with the average ticket for a Hawks home game heading into last season at $105, I’m guessing Hawks officials figured in 2018 they’d have a better chance in the long run of filling all of those empty seats at State Farm Arena with a rising Black star instead of a nearly established white one.

That gamble still makes sense.

According to a 2018 Forbes.com story, Atlanta is tied with Washington D.C. as the nation’s No. 1 city in economic prosperity for Blacks.

Forbes.com contributor Joel Kotkin wrote, “Atlanta, with its historically black universities and strong middle class, has long been described as the black capital of America, and its thriving entertainment scene has given rise to claims that it’s become a cultural capital as well. Entrepreneurship is strong, with some 20% of the metro area’s black working population self-employed, the highest proportion in the nation, and though median black household income is quite a bit lower than in the D.C. area at $48,161, costs are lower too. In-migration has slowed since the financial crisis, but the black population is still up 14.7% since 2010.”

Consider, too, that Atlanta Magazine mentioned the city’s population increased by 700,000 over the past 10 years. The bulk of that growth involved blacks (352,000 compared to 120,000 Asians, 104,000 Hispanics and 81,000 whites).

The magazine added, “Of the 10 counties closest to the city of Atlanta, only two—Forsyth and Cherokee—are expected to remain majority white 20 years from now.”

All that Mavericks officials know is, they have their new Nowitzki, the German standout who spent 14 of his 21 years with the Mavericks through the 2018-2019 season making All-Star Games.

During the 2010-2011 season, Nowitzki took the Mavericks to a world championship while becoming the NBA’s Most Valuable Player.

With Doncic as that new Nowitzki, he had the ball in his hands Sunday somewhere around Louisiana, with his Mavericks trailing by a point as the clock ticked toward zero. He stepped back, fired and made a three-pointer to seal his triple-double afternoon of 43 points, 17 rebounds and 13 assists.

Doncic sort of did those things on one leg. He was recovering from a mild ankle sprain from 40 hours earlier, and he’s just 21, which means he could have these wonderfully crazy moments forever.

Young also is just 21, and he’s happy for Doncic.

That sounds about right.