Mavericks rookie Sergio de Larrea didn’t grow up dreaming of playing alongside Luka Doncic. He grew up idolizing him. And now, after a chaotic chain of trades, the 20-year-old Spanish guard is suddenly in the same locker room as his childhood hero.
De Larrea, who Dallas drafted with the 25th overall pick last month, admitted this week that Doncic was basically his basketball North Star back in Spain.
“He was, for me, my idol in my younger era,” de Larrea said in a video posted by DLLS Mavs’ Kevin Gray Jr. “For that reason, I was a Mavericks fan a long time ago.”
Funny thing about that. De Larrea didn’t actually land with the Mavericks directly. He was drafted by the Lakers, then flipped to the Knicks, then shipped to Dallas in a three-team deal involving the Suns. So technically, he and Doncic were briefly Lakers teammates for about 12 seconds before the Mavs swooped in.
A winding path to Dallas
The Mavericks have spent the last two years trying to shake the ghost of the Doncic trade. Shipping him to Los Angeles felt like a franchise-altering mistake at first. Dallas missed the playoffs two years in a row. Everything seemed to unravel.
But then they got lucky. The ping-pong balls bounced their way and they landed the No. 1 pick in last year’s draft, which turned into Cooper Flagg. Now with Kyrie Irving back from injury and Dusty May running the show, the vibes are different.
De Larrea fits into that new wave. He’s one of three rookies Dallas added this summer — Morez Johnson Jr. went 9th overall, de Larrea went 25th, and Tobi Lawal went 48th. None of them are guaranteed minutes yet, but the team needs young role players who can develop behind Irving and Flagg.
De Larrea probably watched the 2024 Finals run from home, cheering for Doncic and Irving the way any Spanish kid who grew up on Luka highlights would. But that run feels like a lifetime ago now. The roster looks completely different. The identity is shifting.
Idol to teammate, sort of
It’s a strange twist for de Larrea. He grew up wanting to be like Doncic. Now they share an agency, a practice facility, and a jersey. But Doncic is still the face of the franchise, and de Larrea is a second-round pick trying to carve out a rotation spot. That’s a weird dynamic when your idol is also your coworker.
The Mavericks haven’t commented on whether the two have talked much since the trade. But de Larrea clearly isn’t hiding his fandom. He admitted he was a Mavs fan long before he ever put on the uniform. Now he gets to learn from Irving while being a locker over from the guy whose poster he probably had on his wall.
Not a bad outcome for a 20-year-old who, a few weeks ago, didn’t even know which city he’d be living in.
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