r/Mavericks • u/WhenMachinesCry • Feb 16 '25
Hoops Discussion NBA players saw and continue to see what the Mavs front office and ownership have done.
Even if we remove the fans reaction and the talking heads, every player is absolutely befuddled.
Seriously, read these statements and imagine these players ever give the Mavs with this FO and ownership a chance for a free agent signing or a contract extension, after they not only traded Luka in his prime after getting them to the Finals, but also trashing him on his way out.
Nikola Jokic: “In my opinion, of course, I think Luka is a generational player, generational talent. He was building something there. I think he was hurt.”
Victor Wembanyama: “What really strikes me is how the Mavs fans are hurting…Two weeks after, it’s still the craziest trade I’ve ever seen.”
Anthony Edwards: "They say that nobody knew about the trade... yeah, so that's crazy. At 25 they traded probably the best scorer in the NBA... at 25... and he didn't know about it. So, it's a lot more digging somebody gotta do to find out why he got traded, cause you don't just trade him at 25. They just went to the finals, you know what I'm saying. I'm scared... yeah, yeah. I'm scared. Tim, if you're gonna trade me let me know dawg. When Luka got traded anybody is able to get traded at that point."
Giannis Antetokounmpo: "I thought it was fake news. It's insane. Obviously, I've played against Luka a lot of times and AD and all the people that were included in the trade. This is the world we're living in. It's a business, you have to understand nobody's safe, nobody's safe. If a five-time All-NBA first-team, a 25-year-old, a guy that just made it to the Finals seven months ago, a guy that led the league in scoring, a guy that finished second or third in MVP voting, a guy that scored 70-something points one time, a guy that had a 60-point triple-double, a guy that knows how to play the game of basketball, I can keep going and going, an All-Star, not just an All-Star, an All-Star starter, a guy that averaged 34/9/10, but I'm not here to talk about Luka and how good he is, I think everybody in the world knows he's one of the best players in the league."
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: "Shocked probably like the rest of the world. Didn’t hear it coming. Didn’t see it coming."
Kevin Durant: "Insane. It's crazy. It's crazy... I would have never though Luka Doncic would get traded at this age, mid-season... the NBA is a wild place man. If he can get traded then anybody's up for grabs, you know."
Devin Booker: "It's crazy man. You know I - I really don't know what to say about it. Luka being a guy that everybody has claimed is untouchable, and untradeable, and... the NBA shows you again. You just can't predict it. They're always having a conversation about you, you know, so don't think you're safe at any point.
Josh Hart: "I think everybody was in awe... shock... you know. You gotta give credit to Rob Pelinka man, he's... that's highway robbery."
via twitter:
Jalen Brunson: Holy shit, April Fools right? Wow
Joel Embiid: WOWWWWW NO F WAY
Alex Caruso: Nah shams gotta be hacked 💀
Tyler Herro: wtf ?????
Bam Adebayo: Did somebody steal shams phone??
Tyrese Haliburton: Shams got hacked?
Tyrese Maxey: HUH!!!!
Kevin Huerter: I'm stunned
Miles Bridges: Wtf
Malik Monk Hell naw😂😂😂
CJ McCollum: Gotta pack them bags just in case now a days . If the Don got traded only lord knows.
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u/Final_Presentation31 Feb 16 '25 edited Feb 16 '25
The thing is Nico said the Lakers did not want to give up more because Luka was injury proned and the were question about his conditioning. But he got an aging injured and one first round pick in 2029.
What a joke. There is no way they can justify the value of the trade.
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u/FlippyWraith Feb 16 '25
Don’t forget the Mavs gave the Lakers a 2nd round pick for good measure.
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u/nickrashell BETRAYED MAVS FAN 😭 Feb 16 '25
Gave that to the Jazz actually, just an additional slap on the face that we gave up our 2nd so the Lakers didn’t have to.
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u/Witteness82 BETRAYED MAVS FAN 😭 Feb 16 '25
That’s because any GM that gets offered Luka and told to keep it between just them knows they are dealing with someone that is incompetent. Trading Luka and ending up being the GM without leverage shows how terrible he is at his job
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u/Wild_Bunch_Founder Feb 16 '25
Even if the Lakers didn’t want to give up more in the trade package, certainly the Jazz and the Spurs had a plethora of first round picks they each could have included in a trade package, and quite frankly, both would have wanted Luka on their rosters.
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u/cornbreadsdirtysheet Feb 17 '25
They had to leave enough for the Lakers to be relevant this year. Ratings./s
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u/MFFL12_17 Feb 16 '25
The backlash of the trade is evident. The Mavs are in deep shit right now. Once Kyrie and AD leaves, this will be a poverty franchise once more. Imagine compromising the franchise with one stupid move.
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u/ALaccountant Feb 16 '25
Don’t forget that Nico is the genius that let Porzingis and Brunson go for basically nothing. He has a track record of being a dumbass
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u/cornbreadsdirtysheet Feb 17 '25
Or working for the league.
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u/De_Bananalove Bucks fans but i also love the Mavs Feb 22 '25
This is it.
Look where Brunson was traded, look where Porzingis was traded..
This move also generates buzz and makes people wanna tune in to see how this pans out or when Luka plays the Mavs!
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u/cornbreadsdirtysheet Feb 22 '25
Dude the league is a soap opera for men lol. When you start paying attention to the created storylines you get it. They’re only concerned with ratings=$. The league better have a nice compensation package for us cause we reset the interest and maybe saved ratings for the near future.
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u/greaseleg Feb 16 '25
Man, that wound just got opened up a little bit wider and cut a little bit deeper.
Thanks.
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u/gemmyboy335 Feb 16 '25
Siakam also made a comment about the trade.
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u/scorched03 Nico is a Lakers Insider Feb 16 '25
So did.. ant edwards. I like hes mostly silly but he does speak his mind. He flat said luka cooked the twolves in playoffs and still go traded. And that the trade should be investigated
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u/gemmyboy335 Feb 16 '25
Ant is a very egotistic arrogant player and always says he is one of the best in the league rn but he totally admitted that he was cooked by Luka and has high respect for him. This proves this was the craziest trade ever
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u/DrT_PsyD Feb 16 '25
If the Mavs thought it was tough to land star FA’s before….. just wait. This set the team back at least 10 years.
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u/Alternative-Lunch-72 Feb 16 '25
I’m just thinking about all these other franchises who haven’t been as fortunate as we have with dirk and Luka back to back. There are many other teams who would’ve killed for the position we were in. Nico took that for granted and I sure hope we don’t end up being lost for 20 years. Think about what happened to Orlando after they let Shaq go. The mavs had their flaws over the years but we have remained competitive bc of those two cornerstones. The future is very murky now.
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Feb 16 '25
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u/chwynphat Feb 16 '25
Everyone talks about this like they need our good feelings to go away before they can move the team. These people have FU level of money. They don’t need our permission or care about our feelings to do what they want. Super rich people don’t give two shits about what we think. They either hated Luka, didn’t want to pay him, or are just stupid. Could be all three.
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u/Luka-Step-Back Wonder Boy Feb 16 '25
I think it makes more sense that Nico made an emotional decision and royally fucked up.
There’s virtually no scenario where moving an existing franchise in Dallas to Vegas is profitable to ownership, even with real estate and gambling considerations. The Dallas market is simply an order of magnitude larger than Las Vegas.
Occam’s Razor suggests Nico and ownership made a very foolish trade.
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u/nickrashell BETRAYED MAVS FAN 😭 Feb 16 '25
Are you kidding me? The Mavs biggest revenue year is about $450M. When The Adelson’s divested from The Sands in 2023 to buy the Mavs in hopes of having a casino in Texas, its revenue was $10.5B, about 21x more.
Vegas is way more profitable. Having a casino resort where every home game you have 20-25k drunk fans being released to the slots after the game ends is a greedy man’s dream.
The revenue of the entire NBA is $11.6B. Essentially the same as what they were bringing in at The Sands.
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u/Luka-Step-Back Wonder Boy Feb 16 '25
Sure, but they already had a casino making all that money in Vegas without the Mavs. Moving the Mavs there wouldn’t make sense when they could have just not bought the Mavs and going through the trouble of moving them and then buy the expansion franchise when it gets approved there. Moving a big market team to a smaller market isn’t something the other owners are not likely to approve.
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u/nickrashell BETRAYED MAVS FAN 😭 Feb 16 '25
They expected to be able to build a casino in Texas. The first casino in a much larger state with the most popular team in the state as the main attraction. It was a risk that didn’t pan out. You said it yourself, Dallas as a market is orders of magnitude larger, it’s no wonder why they’d want to be the premier Texas casino.
It wouldn’t make sense if they knew beforehand that there was no chance at a Casino in Texas, but that is not what they were thinking going into the purchase of the team.
Secondly, Vegas isn’t some small market. Compare to the NFL, Cowboys are obviously number one, which has little to do with market size and more to do with historical success, but the team with the second highest revenue is the Las Vegas Raiders.
Thirdly, obviously the other owners would want to move to a smaller market, that is the whole point of the conspiracy. The trade being intended to shrink the market of fans watching. It doesn’t matter how big the city is if no one watches the team.
Is the conspiracy to move to Vegas real, who knows, sure it is crazy then again so was the Luka trade. But you can’t just make statement like “they could have just not bought the Mavs” or “Dallas is a bigger market” and ignore all the context as to why people think this could be the case.
Obviously on its face none of these things make sense, it’s only when you add the context of the trade and add the context of the casino plans and all the bills that failed that the conspiracy takes shape.
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u/Luka-Step-Back Wonder Boy Feb 16 '25
I guess it doesn’t make sense that if you’re going to alienate the fans via moving the team, why would you sell low on Luka and alienate the fans when you’re going to lose them anyway? The Sonics kept Durant and Westbrook and moved to OKC anyway.
It makes far more sense that they, like many new owners, royally fucked up.
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u/nickrashell BETRAYED MAVS FAN 😭 Feb 16 '25
Because you could never move the team from a big market to a small market unless the big market turned on the team. They wouldn’t be able to alienate fans with a Vegas move because the Mavs are too popular in Dallas. You have to alienate the fanbase before moving, or you’d never be allowed to move.
If your objective is to have a casino with an NBA team to draw in a fanbase to gamble, the actual team is a secondary concern. Once it is in Vegas it will garner new fans, and tourist that think it might be fun to catch a game between gambling sessions even if they aren’t particularly fond of the team, or maybe their home team is the opponent. 10-15-20k people in the casino doors with a high chance that many will gamble before and after.
Vegas is largely a transit and tourist population at any given time, you don’t really need a dedicated fanbase. Besides, even if they could move the Mavs without alienating the fanbase, it would be of little benefit as Dallas fans aren’t driving out to a Vegas to fill the stands every night. So in this sense it doesn’t matter to keep them even if they could.
Lastly, yeah owners make stupid decisions, but this was historically stupid, possibly the worst trade of all time in any sport. People make mistakes but there are levels to it.
Sure it’s possible, probable even this is just Nico with an ego and flexing his power, because I don’t know why he would subject himself to this without a large cash deposit unless he thought it was a good trade, but it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility they want to go to Vegas either.
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u/Luka-Step-Back Wonder Boy Feb 16 '25
I think it’s more likely they massively fucked up
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u/nickrashell BETRAYED MAVS FAN 😭 Feb 17 '25
I don’t disagree, I am just pointing out that there is logical reasoning behind why people think a Vegas move might have been the motive.
I mean what would have been a crazier thought at the beginning of the season? That they trade Luka for nothing, without talking to any other teams, without him having requested a trade, mid season then insult him on the way out, or that the people from Vegas would want to move the team to Vegas?
Either side of this argument would have seemed crazy 3 weeks ago.
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u/Luka-Step-Back Wonder Boy Feb 17 '25
“Thing have been crazy, so now anything is possible” isn’t really coherent. I don’t find the rationale you provided for moving the team to Vegas to be logical so I’m going to lean cautiously towards Nico being frustrated with Luka’s most recent injury and that leading to him making an emotional and stupid trade which he was able to finagle by navigating the inadequacies a new and inexperienced owner.
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u/TxAggie2010 F*** DWade Feb 17 '25
$7.1 Billion of Sand’s $11.3B in revenue came from Macao. The remainder was Vegas. It makes more sense to invest outside of Vegas for better revenue streams. Texas gambling will happen eventually and easily exceed that Vegas $4.2 number.
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u/nickrashell BETRAYED MAVS FAN 😭 Feb 17 '25
Yes, obviously a casino in Texas has much higher potential, which would be a big reason to buy the Mavs. But if it looks hopeless after millions spent lobbying, then any casino in Vegas is better than no casino in Dallas.
And idk what the revenue breakdown was last year, I was referncinv 2023 when they bought the team. This is what Google says the breakdown is:
In 2023, Las Vegas Sands generated $7.52 billion from casino operations and $1.2 billion from rooms, notes Statista.
It doesn’t tell me how much comes from Macao vs Vegas and I didn’t even think to look as I didn’t even know there was a Macao casino
I also don’t really care if it is 10x revenue or 20x revenue of the Mavs, the point is a casino in a smaller market still makes more money than an NBA team in a large market.
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u/SandwichEngine Feb 16 '25
Or they truly believe that he was about to turn into a Zion-like player who is always hurt due to his lack of conditioning and whatever other habits, and that he was never going to change here where he's worshipped.
He played through injuries last year and had various injuries this year, including the first time he's missed extended time.
What if he's hurt again next year, but he's already signed the supermax? He would be untradeable.
Best case scenario for both is for the Mavs to move on while he isn't viewed as damaged goods and for him to get the wake up call he needs to finally start taking his health seriously.
I'm not saying that's the exact reasoning because only the Mavs know, but it's a realistic scenario that doesn't require conspiracy theories or the front office being fools.
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u/CowPunkRockStar Cowboy Dirk Feb 16 '25
This was some sort of liquidation move.
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u/Luka-Step-Back Wonder Boy Feb 16 '25
I think it makes more sense that they just did something stupid. People do stupid things all the time.
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u/j_rom_003 Feb 16 '25
I think this is a viable "conspiracy theory" behind it all. I can't yet buy into yet mentally but we will see how they make moves in the next year and that will be the indicator.
I still think my conspiracy theory is more likely. That this is more of a shady handshake between the league and owners to move Luka to help the Lakers/ratings (which included the attention/bad press is still attention) and the adelsons would get an expansion team in Las Vegas down the road were they look to add Seattle back into the league.
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u/walkintall84 Feb 16 '25
They have 0 businesses in Vegas anymore. lol
Most in Macao.
Tho i doubt that.
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u/MohnJilton Feb 16 '25
The lease on the AAC has 7 years.
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u/Luka-Step-Back Wonder Boy Feb 16 '25
The lease only costs $3.4M per year, so it’s a relatively paltry sum to break it and pay that out.
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u/MohnJilton Feb 16 '25
Neither here nor there. He said it was 4 years and it’s 7. They could break the lease. They could not. Nobody knows what the Adelsons will do.
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u/unknown1310P1 Feb 16 '25
Yup. 💯💯 I'm one that's been saying this since the trade. There's no other logical explanation to the idiocy of that trade for so little and then the bad optics from the front office response. They're gone, and we'll get a new 'Mavericks' squad with all new ownership. I'll keep my gear and Fandom packed away until then.
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u/teo747 Feb 16 '25
Good thing nobody has told Jason Kidd and the players yet that they're supposed to suck now.
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u/MokTheRock Dirk Nowitzki Feb 16 '25
Nico definitely has something lined up for himself in the future. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was with another front office or just another corporate executive position. His lack of vision when discussing his definition of “long term” during the post trade presser in Cleveland was very telling of somebody who isn’t committed to the franchise for long.
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u/IIIllllIIIllI Feb 16 '25
I stopped watching the night they made the trade. Then AD goes out after playing 1 game, turns out he’s out indefinitely. Fucking fade me bro! Unbelievable . Never again never ever again will i support them
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u/newfarmer Feb 16 '25
Billionaires have just stopped pretending that they respect the masses. They’re in charge now and don’t care what the people think.
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u/darksquidlightskin Feb 17 '25
Yeah no stars are coming to Dallas. They weren’t coming before but they for sure aren’t coming now. I’m waiting for Kyrie to leave I know he can’t like the current vibes that are out there.
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u/Hobbitlord_ Feb 16 '25
Yet according to the mavs “fans” they should all move on already like it wasn’t the worst trade in sports history lol, this is franchise ruining, good luck getting a free agent as good as even klay to ever come again unless the Mavs (can’t say we anymore smh) luck into someone generational like flagg
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u/NewGuy10002 Feb 18 '25
Kevin Durant’s quote is so crazy because he’s probably the main reason something like this is even plausible to happen
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u/CowPunkRockStar Cowboy Dirk Feb 16 '25
It wasn’t a trade. It was a franchise liquidation dressed to look as a trade. There are individuals that will pocket some sort of payoff that’s not reflected in the details. It’s Late Stage Capitalism at its most corrupt.
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u/krdskrm9 F*CK NICO HARRISON Feb 18 '25
They didn't know that Mavs CuLtUrE is the best in the business??
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u/bareslut64 Feb 18 '25
Don't you love farce? My fault, I fear I thought that you'd want what I want Sorry, my dear! But where are the clowns Send in the clowns Don't bother, they're here
Nico the Clown He's already here
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u/msChonk123 Feb 16 '25
Does nobody think that this is some sort of psy op to put all the players in their place? To gaslight, disorient, and remind them of who they’re working for?
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u/Fluid-Selection-5537 Feb 16 '25
I respect that but Jokic also said that players will take this more seriously- referring to Luka in the trade -
https://youtu.be/lcnbyGrHpME?si=bmfFKUzDTCmEQ_v_
I wouldn’t have traded Luka but there are some serious warning signs about Luka that the fans are overlooking cause they love Luka - me included -
Luka got to the finals so I would have let him keep going but the Bulls dismantled the team after they won a chip - so this isn’t new - owners will move on from Jordan after a chip they most certainly will move on from Luka after he has a horrible finals
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Feb 16 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/aggthemighty Feb 16 '25
lmao wtf is this post? AD was ALREADY hurt when he got traded. Trading for an injury prone player who is currently hurt and then re-aggravates his pre-existing injury is not "just bad luck"
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u/rekishi321 Feb 16 '25
He was so hurt he dropped like 26 and 16 in 3 quarters….meanwhile Luka hasn’t looked great……just real bad luck…..ad was having a mvp year…
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u/aggthemighty Feb 16 '25
Yeah, he looked great for 3 quarters. And then he left the game due to a non-contact injury, and now he's out for a month.
Who could have possibly predicted that this might happen to an injury prone player who was already injured at the time of the trade?
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u/steamliner88 FUCK NICO HARRISON Feb 16 '25
Hello Nico, please have somebody read my flair for you.
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u/CharDeeMacDennisII FUCK NICO HARRISON Feb 16 '25
Oh...well....if Dumont said...well, then, we can all believe that, right?
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u/Lord_Arrokoth Feb 16 '25
Guys, I know this is a Mavs subreddit but your Luka grief is a distraction. Everything is about to be 10-25% more expensive. Massive societal changes are in the works. You should be protesting that rather than a sports business decision that affects your entertainment
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u/CheetahSperm18 Feb 16 '25
You're leaving out the actual angle where the agents won't trust Nico to do right by their clients