Luka to Lakers
Crushed as a mavs fan. Completely out of left field I’ve never been affected by sports this much before
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as a mavs fan, i am in disbelief. i've never felt anything like this before
shits actually insane man. What was the front office thinking. I don’t know how to handle this I can’t watch basketball anymore
I'm in denial saying that the league is rigged towards the lakers needing to get a star for lebron's retirement. There has to be stuff we don't know, probably the worst trade in sports history
Read somewhere they wanted a defensive minded team. Defense wins championships. Luka is a legendary offensive player obviously, but has some weaknesses. Among them, not being quick enough to guard wing players shooting the 3 ball.
Del
traded the franchise goat contender for anthony davis, this cannot be real
I don’t think the trade is an insane as it sounds.
Anthony Davis is only 31 and playing at an all-nba level. He has length and can spread the floor with his long distance shooting. Great defender and rebounder obviously.
One of my best friends is close friends with current NBA player and this player was in town a month ago to play the Knicks and at dinner he was telling us stories about the top players.
When Luka came up, he said all the players joke about him being a fatty, and if you read the article it says the mavs front office believes his diet and conditioning have gotten worse and worse.
So if they think he’s going to be injury prone as he struggles with his weight, maybe the mavs think he will end up like Zion Williamson. And they think kyrie can handle the offense.
The only thing that doesn’t make sense to me is that the mavs just went to the finals, so it’s not like they needed to blow this thing up.
And if Luka was terrible at conditioning and injury prone, why would the lakers want him?
Zion has gotten his conditioning under control and looks great as of late
Jokic is unathletic but the nuggets built around him. That’s what you do with a generational star. Mavs trading Luka because he isn’t fit is absurd imo build around him or work with him
Athletic =/= fit and/or fast. Jokic is extremely athletic.
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No idea why this is getting MS. Logical take with a bit of inside scoop too.
I think the Mavs realized they weren't going to bet their entire future on a guy (i) whose overall impact comes down a bit when factoring in defense and (ii) who isn't even doing the basics to take care of his body.
Don't get me wrong, still a superstar. But if you sign him to that supermax, that's it. He's the backbone of your franchise for a long time, with no real wiggle room.
Theory on why the Lakers want him is the whole showtime thing, they need their headliner etc. Not a strong theory but maybe enough.
Because it is based on obvious Mavs front office spin that doesn’t hold up to the bare minimum of scrutiny.
“Luka is fat! He’s going to be injury prone!” - Luka single handedly drug the Mavs to the finals just last year playing long minutes and has played long minutes without major injury his whole career.
“We’ll replace him with AD!” - AD actually is notoriously injury prone and is almost 7 years older, so even if the thesis on Luka was correct, the solution doesn’t make sense.
C’mon doc. You know exactly why my posts get tons of downvotes.
This thread is really how I found out about this lmao.
Yeah heard here first then on poker chat on Twitch.
Mavs got fleeced. Absolute highway robbery.
Cheap ass new ownership doesn’t want to pay Supermax
$345 million reasons for the Mavs to make the deal.
I get Mavs front office not wanting to pay $70M a year, but they literally sold the heart of the franchise. He's the guy fans pay to watch. I love Kyrie but he's not enough to get them a chip.
It makes very little sense to trade a multi tool 25 year old year who is one the best players in the NBA for a 31 year old guy, who while very productive, gets injured a lot
Someone called this trade the biggest short in nba history. Mavs are betting Luka is not be worth that extension, big balls by Nico but I think a dumbass move
Even then why not hold a broad auction process where you can get a top 25 NBA player plus 4-5 FRPs which is the market price? Unless there is backroom dealing between ownership groups, which explains it.
Completely agree felt same way about a lot of deals. There no way you couldn't have squeezed every pick possible out of pelinka. Honestly there's a world u can get AD w Kyrie and pieces
Apparently the rationale for not hearing out offers is because Nico Harrison didn’t want Luka finding out about the trade.
"Big balls" more like retarded
Hard to digest. If AD had never had consistent injury concerns I would feel more okay trading my 25 year old top 5 player who may or may not have a short prime due to poor conditioning for a 31 year old aging star who’s a big. My issue is, AD’s injuries have been non contact primarily ankle and knee problems which don’t get better with age. The idea that him playing as a 4 will help him to injury free is only partly true when he essentially injures himself, it’s not from banging (pause) in the post with Jokic/Embiid/other Cs etc.
Maybe the mavs know something we don’t about Luka’s interpersonal issues, but the more I hear Nico Harrison speak he just strikes me as a complete jackass who do is trigger happy to reuniting himself with a player he subjectively likes a bit too much in AD (and no slight to AD he’s a top 10 player in my eyes).
Kyrie will probably age well, IF AD can stay remotely healthy in the playoffs then they have a young core of PJ/Lively, Gafford and Christie for at least 3 years that can keep them competitive defensively and adding/keeping 2-3 shooters and secondary ball handlers on the cheap is all they need to worry about. Honestly I love the fit in Dallas short term- makes them the 2nd best team in the western conference tied with Houston. What you’re giving up is something much further down the line, in 2028 onwards, where you’ve relinquished your 2028-2030 picks in the form of pick swaps when Kyrie and AD are washed/retired. You traded those swaps away because Luka would have been there to single handedly keep you .500 every year. Now you don’t have that and it’s a Phoenix situation but worse because you don’t have a 28 year old Booker who will still be in the tail of his prime then to keep you competitive enough to not lose a top 5 pick.
Interesting to see if Lebron in the offseason forces his way to GSW to play out his last year with Curry, I could see the Warriors giving up Wiggins and a few picks for Bron and maybe a sign & trade with Kuminga in RFA to sweeten the deal for LAL. Even if they add a big before the deadline there’s so many kinks to workout between having Lebron and Luka, especially defensively, that I don’t think they’re seriously competitive rn
If I ever see Nico Harrison irl I might go to prison
There are so many hilarious skits on TikTok right now about this...
The trade was surprising, but the size of the reaction is even more surprising. Obviously a big deal, but I thought this was on the level the average blockbuster trade you see every 2-3 years. The reaction has been bigger than that . . like a once in a generation kind of reaction.
Are Mavs fans so sure Luka is a once in a generation player like that? Sure he's 1st time all NBA for 5 years. But he's not taking care of his body, he plays no defense, and you have to pay him a super max. So how much value is he adding beyond the cap space he'll eat up?
Barkley has actually made a lot of good predictios over the years when it comes to on-court chemistry. He says Dallas will be good, intrigued to see it.
My thoughts on the takes too. I’ve never seen fans so gutted. This was below the magnitude of the Paul George (and even James Harden) trade(s) of the Thunder’s past imo. Maybe I just never have given Luka his flowers.
How is the reaction surprising? Luka is only 25 and is one of the best players in the NBA. AD is 31 and is injured a lot. There is only one guy in the NBA who has better offensive numbers than Luka since 2019 and his name Jokic who by the way also does not play much defense and is unathletic. Luka has averaged 29 points per game with 9 assists and 8 boards since 2019
Everything you're saying is correct and relevant. I just think there's one more big piece which is that Luka was coming up on free agency and at least a few teams around the league would be willing to pay him the max. Dallas can pay him more (supermax) but there are concerns about his conditioning, which in turn raise concerns about his overall dedication. Supermax is 35% of cap space for five years. Massive, massive commitment. And if Dallas doesn't want to make that commitment they probably lose him for nothing because other teams will offer him something close (not quite the supermax, but still the max).
So it's not just is Anthony Davis better than Luka. If the Mavs aren't sure they'll keep Luka under those circumstances, it becomes a question of whether Anthony Davis is better than nothing.
Still agree it appears like a lopsided trade against Dallas. Just splitting hairs between lopsided and insane.
You're missing something here - the reaction is not surprising because he's a superstar getting moved, nor is it even because he's a 25 year-old superstar who's been on All-NBA 1st team in 5 of the first 6 years of his career. The reaction is surprising because he NEVER indicated that he wanted to leave in any way, shape or form, and has only reaffirmed this position in the aftermath. There has NEVER EVER been any top-5 young player in any major American sport who, before his/her prime, has been traded without asking out. Anthony Davis was probably a top 5-7 player when he was around the same age, but he wanted out and they moved him. Kevin Durant when he was (technically) traded from GSW to BKN and then from BKN to PHX wanted out both times (and he wasn't a young star, he was a mature/older star), KG same thing.
That's why this trade is shocking. Trading your face of the franchise and objectively top 5 player at 25 when he WANTS TO STAY AND EXTEND has never been seen before, and honestly, will probably never be seen again. This would be like if OKC traded Shai tomorrow, or if Denver traded Jokic out of the blue after he won his first MVP in 2021. You'd probably be shocked, right? I don't see the difference here.
And btw, i'm actually in the camp that this trade improves the Mavs in the short term/maybe medium term.
That’s true. Good points. It’s never happened before.
At least for me, I had always wondered why. Because the disaster of signing a franchise player to a long term contract and regretting it when he falls off too soon, has happened before. And it’s disastrous when it happens.
So if the disaster happens with some frequency, then I would’ve expected that the mitigation effort (trading a top player who you don’t want to re-sign for insane $) would also happen with some frequency. But you’re right, it hasn’t. Maybe the Mavs have pioneered something.
It is a once in a generation type trade and thus has received a once in a generation type reaction, both for how out of nowhere it came and for how comically poor the Mavs front office handled and continue to handle the situation.
The Lakers were the only team the GM talked to lmao. Didn’t even shop Luka, a top 5 player in the league, around and drive up the value. Surely those of us on WSO can understand how poor of a decision that was. What the Mavs got in return is hilariously low compared to what they should have received and what other teams have given up for even lower tier players.
Hard to disagree with you for now. Give it a year. LA has a lot of great local donut shops, gonna be tempting.
Mavs fans be like:
Mods how the hell is this not perfectly relevant talking about a player TRADE????
Basketball stopped being interesting once Allen Iverson and Vince retired.
Defense wins championships bro, that's why Jokic won a ring, he was clamping like crazy
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