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09/02/2025
This is going to be a raw rant a little off the cuff. I know not everyone will agree with this, but as an old-timer and a sports fan, I am a little worried about the future of sports. Moreso the NBA, but sports as a whole are being forever changed. The landscape of professional sports, gambling, billionaire oligarchs, and those who will suffer the most (the fans) are sadly the ouroboros feeding the inevitable demise of the institution of sports.
I am sure many of you have seen the situation involving the Luka Doncic trade, the 26-year-old face of his franchise being sent to the L.A. Lakers. I'm not a huge conspiracy nut, in fact, I mostly shun the idea of them. But this one, this one right here is a doozy!
The narrative by ownership, management, and coaches has been that this trade was only about strengthening defense for the Mavs. Picking up Anthony Davis can add to your defense, but the Mavs already had a solid defense and were 7th in the league. In the finals, they held the Celtics to 101 points per game, and we know what a powerhouse Boston was in 2024. Mentioning "defense" 10 times in the press conference was their justification. But why would they throw out the baby with the bath water and trade away their self-described Nowitzki clone?
This is where ownership comes in. The now majority owners in Dallas are the Adelson family. The Adelsons own the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Okay, so why does this matter? Well, Las Vegas will be the next city to get an expansion team, commissioner Silver has already said that this will be the next destination. But why would you buy a team in Dallas if you could just wait and be owners in the city where you already do business? One reason could be that current owners will receive more consideration for a future team. But the main reason this conspiracy makes sense is this would allow the Sands Corp to expand their area of influence. Texas has a buster symbol over the word gambling built into its constitution, it has been staunch in its stance not budging on its position. In fact, the Adelsons spent 14 million on lobbyists to try and get this changed last year. They failed, and now won't have a chance to change this law for another 2 years.
Failure of course didn't mean "game over" it most certainly meant "game on." This is where the idea of sabotaging the ream comes into play. The NBA would not consider allowing such a huge market team to move to Las Vegas after its past success. Unless the fans were so disgusted with the team and owners that they no longer wanted to support them. If the Adelsons hold Dallas hostage and threaten this move they will have far more power with politicians in getting the now anti-gambling state to reconsider its past stance. Thus giving the Adelsons exactly what they want, gambling in Dallas and expansion of their hotel and casino empire.
This is of course speculation, and in the end will any of this matter? Is the horizon already in sight and is the league and sports itself secondary to everything else? I dunno, but to use a Star Wars quote, "I have a bad feeling about this." In my opinion, the sphere of influence of gambling has ruined sports. The fact that this conspiracy is one of the more plausible reasons why this trade happened pretty much confirms that both are connected and that gambling and sports are intertwined and it is now impossible to separate the two. This allows for corruption on levels that may surprise us in the future, making the odds further in the favor of the house. Which in this case will be the corporations that own the teams, casinos, sports betting books and so much more.
I may resemble Chicken Little right now, but I really do see a darker future. I may be dead by the time I am proven right, but that quote from Macbeth always comes to mind. "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
