Voulgaris didn't officially join the Mavericks FO until after the Luka draft, so he most certainly had nothing to do with that decision and all credit should go to Nelson. I'm reading Rick Carlise quotes from that first Luka season where he says Nelson told him long before the draft he was pretty sure Luka was going to be the best player in that class, and that Nelson is one of the best talent evaluators Carlisle has ever seen in the league.
Calling his draft performance terrible over the last decade is pretty misleading. Looks like the Mavericks maybe had only 7 or 8 first rounders in that time (a couple had been traded away), and the majority were late lottery or late teens. Anybody would do well to bat .250 on picking good players in that range. HOWEVER
I'm also reading that Donnie Nelson wanted to draft Giannis and Cuban overruled him lol. Instead of listening to the guy that found him Dirk, Cuban is like nahh I'm smart, lets pass on his call this time. Instead of complaining about middling moves that don't really move the needle like trading SETH or keeping Dwight Powell around, that's the first thing you should be looking at.
And speaking of wasting Dirk's last 6 years (which is overstating things since Dirk was just running through the motions for the last few), wasn't it Cuban that decided not to re-sign Tyson Chandler because he thought it'd be worth it to create cap space to try to sign Dwight Howard instead of allowing his champions to try to defend their title? Fucking ridiculous.
I'm not Mavericks fan, but if I were I'm pretty sure I'd be blaming Cuban and his hubris more than anybody for the last decade.
Mavs' Donnie Nelson wanted to draft Antetokounmpo, Mark Cuban said no
Look, I think Cuban should get the majority of the blame. At the same time, while acknowledging Cuban has finally done something right by making changes.
On the Voulgaris front: local media guys here have made the claim that Bob was involved with the Mavs, and or at least advising Cuban even before being brought on as an official employee in, Oct of '18??? Don't remember when Bob actually moved into his spot.
All that to say, Donnie clearly loved Luka - but who didn't? I mean, most really smart draft pundits thought Luka was the true, best player and had the highest ceiling (with Ayton being the safe, understandable pick if not Luka).
Nelson apparently wanted Giannis, which I wouldn't be surprised by considering his pedigree of scouting Euros... But it's always in hindsight with those kind of claims. "Hey, yeah, that damn Cuban... We totally were gonna draft Giannis! Yep, 100%. But we just didn't". Nelson has a long track record of drafting and scouting American players, especially out of college, "poorly". Justin Anderson, Dennis Smith Jr. recently being big misses as well.
I'm not saying Nelson Jr. hasn't been a good GM, I just don't think he is that any longer. At some point it's the GM/Head of Basketball operations job to convince the owner that you need to do things like, undertaking a real rebuild far sooner. Or, to use draft assets and actually get value out of them. Technically speaking, the Mavs used trades to acquire their two franchise cornerstones, and aside from them there is a decent list of getting absolutely minimal value out of the draft.
And apparently the breaking up of the 2011 team was in large part Nelson's advice, because they just truly believed they couldn't repeat. I was always under the assumption it was Cuban & or Kidd moving on etc but some really plugged in Mavs guys this week (Chuck Cooperstein etc) said that was definitely a joint decision from Mark, Donnie, and possibly even Rick.
Also on the Donnie note: it's a "what have you done for me lately" league. At the end of the day they haven't really improved the team around Luka in 3 years. They added THJ which is great, but lost Curry & Barnes for a net negative of assets (Richardson's incoming $11 million next year).
Edit: God, I hate to come off as defending Cuban... He's been a massively overrated owner from a results standpoint. Dirk really made this franchise in a lot of ways and they just let him toil in obscurity for his last 6-7 years with terrible rosters. But I do think his moves over the last week have, maybe, been an indication that he has gotten wiser.
