Trump denounces Mavericks trade, then offers Dallas crowd a trade redo as a joke.

As it ran on the front

This reporter notes that the former president, Donald Trump, first criticized the Mavericks' acquisition of Luka Dončić, calling for the deal to be re-examined. Shortly thereafter, at a Dallas rally, he joked about redoing the trade altogether. Indeed, such remarks straddle the divide between sports commentary and political theater. The initial condemnation of the trade, delivered in public, set the stage for the rally punchline; the turn comes when the campaign crowd is offered the fantasy of undoing a major player deal, as if sports decisions are subject to executive fiat. The sequence of events blurs the lines between team loyalty and political campaigning, leaving the Dallas audience in stitches but the Mavericks with the same roster. In the annals of sports history, one might recall the 1979 draft debacle—though this reporter, admittedly, misremembers the involved teams. TRUDY: Gus, the Dončić trade was a 2018 move, and the Mavericks gave up Trae Young and a first-round pick, not a presidential veto. Gus, the crowd wasn't offered an actual redo, just a joke about it, and Dallas isn't rewriting sports history, just hosting a campaign. Take a nap and read the New York Post, sugar.…