Taking care of results

This week a new article was published, longer than usual, describing the process that led to Luka Dončić's trade and offering some explanations about its consequences. It's basketball, not a digital product company, but team sports —much like cinema— are a good place to look for references to understand many key aspects of teams that create digital products.

First, things were broken before they broke. Although Doncic's departure materialized on February 2, 2025, relationships had been deteriorating since the summer of 2023. Your material is not that of an assembly line. An important factor of that material is trust and chemistry, which don't behave as discrete values but as a continuum that needs periodic care.

Second, there are figures who sustain that continuum, who act as connectors. The 2023 dismissal of the director of health and performance generated distrust because of the way it was done —unilateral decisions without communication— but also because it was interpreted as a way of signaling problems whose diagnosis wasn't shared, since it was disconnected from results: Doncic was being criticized for a physical conditioning problem.

Third, results may be more caused by an individual figure than you imagine. Not only because of that person's contribution (Doncic's points, rebounds, assists), but also because of the glue they bring to the team. It seems that for the general manager, Nico Harrison, it became increasingly hard to swallow that Doncic was making decisions in response to his own, and a climate of disconnection grew between management and the players.

The distinction between team-oriented motivation and outcome-oriented motivation is quite common. This Doncic case is a good example of how deeply connected both can be. The team's results have ended up being very negative compared to previous years. It's not unusual for executives to hide personal preferences and power struggles —often summarized as the concern about losing control to overly dominant individual figures— under the excuse of doing everything for the organization and the results. When precisely those results depend on taking care of those people who, for various reasons, stand out.

Digital product companies often overlook this care, and that's why so much talent is lost. Often without even needing a trade.