MAVS NEWS:

[mvossman]

Welcome to the 'bargaining' stage of grief.  Unless you believe one of the conspiracy theories, then yes, this seems to be Nico's thinking.  It is a $350mm bet he didn't want to make.  Unfortunately for Nico, I don't think he can win over the fans still firmly entrenched in "anger".  If Dallas makes a long playoff run, fans will say "Luka could have done that".  If Luka balloons to some massive weight or continues to miss large swaths of time from injuries, fans will say "you can't prove it would have happened here".  And that doesn't even account for the scenarios where Luka plays well or AD suffers a serious injury.

Its not unfortunate for Nico.  He made this bed.  He could have played the season out and then offer Luka up to highest bidder in the offseason.  That would have given us a better chance this season (as I just posted above) and would have greatly improved the return.  Instead, he chose to do secret meetings with an old buddy, got a wildly under market return and sent Luka to a hated rival in the middle of the night.  Its hard to imagine how he could antagonize the fan base more if he tried.