When the Hawks drafted Luka Doncic and immediately traded him to Dallas for its later pick, Trae Young, and another lottery-protected 2019 pick, of course the spontaneous reaction on this end of the deal was to label it horrid.
Even if none of us really knew Luka Doncic from Luca Brasi. But we had grown to know the Hawks, and that was enough. If they did it, odds are it wouldn’t work. Like big government, the Hawks had earned the gag reflex of distrust.
Doncic would be a difference-maker. Young would keep us entertained for a while.