“The heart of why the Mavericks didn’t pay Luka Doncic, or traded Luka Doncic, was because they didn’t want to pay him,” said Brian Windhorst on Unsportsmanlike. “At the end of the day, they did not think a $300 million investment was smart in Luka. We could spend hours debating whether that’s true or not, but that’s what they saw. “The idea that we are in an era where you just take all your players on your roster and just immediately pay them the max just no matter what… That era, I believe, is coming to a close. I believe we are just at the beginning of seeing teams getting, especially that second max contract, and just instantaneously handing it to them [is over]. And so when we watch guys in the middle of their careers… let’s see how these playoffs go and let’s see when some of these extensions come up whether those extensions get done. We’re in a new era right now where you cannot make a mistake on a big contract, which is the lesson that the Sixers and the Suns to a certain extent are learning right now.”