Luke Doncic may as well never have been a Dallas Maverick.
The Dallas Mavericks put out an awkward hype video on social media to get their fans excited for the back-half of the season.
X/@DALLASMAVSThe social team censored and redacted any clip that included players no longer on the team[/caption]
It was awkward because the video included clips of players that were censored and redacted.
In the two-minute-plus video, clips of dark silhouettes were seen, as the Mavericks social team redacted and censored its former players anytime they appeared in the video.
They stuck the Mavericks logo on their heads and reduced their bodies to just silhouettes.
It made for an extremely awkward visual.
This led many fans to question whether or not their former 25-year-old superstar Doncic was one of the bodies that were redacted.
The silhouettes turned out to belong to Maxi Kleber and Quentin Grimes.
Rarely known, but the covering up of any former players is common media practice.
Former Dallas Mavericks digital content manager, Bobby Karalla, posted on X, having explained the editorial decision.
“Every year we had to get rid of images of traded players representing the team ASAP across all media,” Karalla wrote.
“Social, website, videos, magazines, yearbook, etc. They don’t work there anymore.
X/@DALLASMAVSMany fans questioned Doncic was in the video[/caption]
“I know emotions are still high, but this isn’t anything out of the norm.”
However that still begs the question, why even include clips of former players to begin with?
Surely there are thousands of moments to choose from that don’t include players who are no longer on the team.
Instead of simply choosing not to include any clips of said players, they chose to weirdly censor them out of the video, which of course attracted more attention to it.
As if Mavericks fans weren’t upset enough about having their 25-year-old superstar traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, their social team made a couple of unforced errors that made for more jokes.
Mavs fans were not happy about it.
‘A PR disaster would be understating how the Mavs have handled things, but this horrible rap video with Luka Doncic censored in some of the most hilarious ways, is the cherry on top,’ one fan posted on X.
‘Why y’all just redacting Luka like he never existed?’ another fan questioned.
‘This PR crisis keeps getting worse. I’ve never in my life seen anything this poorly handled. It’s like they’re actively trying to make it worse.’ another fan chimed in.
While the silhouettes were not of Doncic, the organization and social team should have just left out all former players to begin with.
That would have saved them a great deal of trouble.
But as it’s been since Dallas shipped Doncic out of town, the Mavericks continue to be the butt of every joke.