Luka Doncic Discussion: Lean Mean Slovenian Scoring Machine

That doesn't make Cuban a moron, especially from the perspective of a Mavs fan like @audiosway. If anything, it was an improbable triumph.

 

Honestly, I don't think Nico had a say in this.

Nico knows basketball. He was good friends with Kobe. Why would he trade Luka, who is a franchise-talent like Kobe, for AD?

I think the franchise is using him as a scapegoat. At the end of the day, if it was that bad of a move, why wasn't he removed as GM? Seems like the Mavs front office are supporting him from behind.

There were conspiracies that the new management wanted to move the Mavs into Las Vegas because the new owners run casinos in Las Vegas and that it would be far more lucrative of a business to have an NBA team with a new Las Vegas arena with casinos. Maybe this is their way of trying to get that ball rolling.

Since hiring Nico, the Mavs went to the conference Finals twice, leading to an NBA Finals appearance one time. And then Cuban, who had a big enough share of the franchise could still have remained the governor of Mavs for team matters but that went to Dumont. You would think they would have kept Cuban there just because he's been running the team for so long.

All this talk about paying Luka the supermax makes no sense because now they're going to lose $ on tickets, merch, etc., They're probably trying to turn the team into a bad franchise, not re-sign Kyrie, move AD when they have a chance, and then go to the NBA and try to force a relocation to Las Vegas.

I really don't think Nico had a say in this. Probably was assured he would have his job and to make this trade. Because everyone seems to see it was awful but somehow the Mavericks owners thought they should still keep Nico? Doesn't add up.

 

I now understand why they didn't want cameras or recording devices to air any of that presser yesterday. On top of their own d******ery, Tim McMahon DESTROYS Nico.




The fact that he's holding an article back until after they're eliminated, should terrify Nico

Couple other reporters brought hard questions too (just not to Tim's degree)



Luka is lucky he got away from that s*** show. Only thing funnier is if he made Dirk and Cuban full time Laker fans.

 

Meh..it's over and down with now. Dallas is going to a problem in the West next season IMO. They'll get over it.

 

Are they? They have to find a starting PG cause Kyrie could be out until next March (8-12 months is the timeline on ACLs, with age and injury history I'm guessing closer to the latter) and they desperately need someone to get them organized. IF they can do that and the bigs stay healthy then sure, but i don't think you can ink that assumption in pen.

 

This guy has an interesting theory about Nico?

https://twitter.com/YoungbloodJoe/status/1912554635912421787

 

Britney Spears Lakers hype video posted on social by Luka Doncic is something I didn't know i needed in my life. But it was.

 

I don't know if team chemistry is that important to winning but this team seems to have it

Also looking forward to seeing this team without dead legs. That stretch to end of the season was really brutal. Don't think I've ever seen that kind of back to backs one after the other.

 

F****** Outstanding!!!



Me think that clip rewatchable “long time”

 

All I know is: we need a mini series on this entire drama that’s playing out.
I couldn’t stand Cuban for so many years because of his antics in the crowd, but he was a very good owner (except for the not drafting Giannis part) and I’m sure almost every player that played for him felt valued.

 

This would be the most memorable Lakers season ever if the Lakers pull it off and win the title.

And to go to the offseason with the ability to upgrade the roster and get time to actually practice, man, this team will be back again next year too.

 

Most memorable season ever? For THIS franchise? Nah man. To each his own, but IMHO beating the damn C Bags in 1985, the three-peat in 2022 and revenge title against the goblins in 2010 were clearly way more historic, meaningful and thus memorable titles. A title this season would be a fantastic start to Luka's tenure as a Laker though .

 

New coach in JJ, Reaves establishing himself as a legitimate All-Star player, LeBron at age 40 still being top 10, trading AD and getting a franchise cornerstone player in Luka. This was after having a lackluster offseason where the Lakers didn't really make any moves outside of hiring JJ.

It'd be a crazy turnaround. Imagine if I told you before the season officially started that the Lakers would have the 3-4th best title odds and Luka would be on the team... Yeah.... It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the Nuggets would whoop the Lakers again when the season started.

 

Not denying it was a special, unique season. The Lakers had a number of those though, and the championships I mentioned certainly rank higher on my list of most memorable ones.

By the way, for me it was not a foregone conclusion that the Nuggest would defeat us again in the playoffs. I tend to be on the more optimistic side in general, but IMO, had the trade not happened, this team would be in the mix for a championship either way. Lower chances and a much darker future going forward, but this season was looking better and better even before the trade.

 

ok, so i'll say again that i think mcmahon is pretty unprofessional. he acts more like a fan than a journalist and has sides on issues that REALLY bias the way he reports. it's plaschke-esque at times, but at least plaschke would probably admit most of his stuff is trolling. mcmahon is just trying to tell his own story about the world instead of the closest approximation of the real story that's possible.

like in this case, it's good that he asked about those firings, but he also can't expect harrison to comment on it, almost for legal purposes. if he says something negative about the people that left, the door could open for legal issues.

he's also not wrong to ask why they traded the better player AND a high second rounder in the grimes/martin deal...but mcmahon knows that was rhetorical and the real answer is that the mavs didn't want to pay grimes. so let's say nico is honest there (which you can't be...), the obvious followup becomes "why didn't you want to pay him?" and you're once again put in position to badmouth your former employee.

note that nico has never publicly done any of this. all the badmouthing of luka, etc., has been leaked off the record (maybe by nico, maybe be someone else). this is why his adopted company lines are "we like our folks" and "defense wins championships". note how he dodged the question about breaking up a team that went to the finals by just repeating this line instead of providing a real answer to that question. the real answer is what's been leaked--they think luka's lack of professionalism cost them one title already (i think this is stupid, but i think it's what they believe).

mcmahon's weird insistence on the discussion of draft picks doesn't do much for me, and i'm not sure what point he's trying to make. he (and many fans and media members) are not understanding that the way nico/mavs view it, they made a semi-lateral move for AD--that they're still very much in contention. thus, the draft picks don't matter during this three-year window, just as they didn't before, when luka was still there.

we all think AD could be done as soon as next year, but nico thinks he'll still be all-nba level two years from now. again, i think i'm right and he's wrong, but once you grant this premise, a lot of mcmahon's stuff just isn't the "gotcha" it seems to be.

so the real question ends up being why did they trust AD's health more than luka's? their answer--that they can't give--is that they watched luka up close for years, and they didn't like what they saw in terms of off-court work. i think nico and the new owners are both (again, weirdly, probably overly) committed to this idea that there's one way to be a pro and win. i think this was cuban's point about not understanding cultural differences.

all that said, i'm probably known as one of AD's biggest fans around here, but watching him for 4 years very closely--i wasn't impressed with how kept his body, either. he was also frequently out of shape, imo. now, i think nico (and me, too, sometimes) would say a lot of this was out of his control, and that if he didn't get injured, he would have been in top condition all the time. but again, this jibes with their values--they think AD's heart and mind are in the right place, and they'd rather bet on that.

and to wrap up, i'm wondering after reading this whether the caseys and co weren't part of a good ol' boys club within the organization--maybe one that had adopted mcmahon? people forget that dallas had a lot of stability in the organization for 20 years--players, management, owners, training staff (i believe dirk, nash, and casey were drinking buddies), even coaches to some degree. then a lot changed at once. the new guys came in and probably felt like outsiders that couldn't become part of the culture. so they decided to create a new one.

i think that new one will be less successful, and i'm glad the lakers were the beneficiary of the upheaval there.

 

I thought the phrasing was weird but I do think the obvious question without them having draft picks and not willing to pay Grimes is that this Mavs team as it is plus Kyrie going to win you a title? You're hamstrung between not wanting to play for higher quality players and no draft picks means you get what you see in front of you. I think Nico has a case that the team would have been a strong contender maybe on the Lakers level but I would be hard pressed to favor that team against OKC/Cle/Boston. Aka if Grimes is the better and you have no assets this whole house of cards kind of falls apart.

 

i don't know, but i'm guessing that they felt grimes was going to command three times martin's salary but they just needed a guy to play martin's role. this occurred before kyrie went down, iirc--when the mavs suddenly could use another perimeter scorer/ballhandler.

i think they felt like you can get a lot of what grimes brings using exum, christie, and martin in alternating fashion at a much lower cost.

while i still don't see why they gave philly their very high 2nd back in the deal, i understand why they'd be worried about paying grimes in a contract year. he's been injured a lot early in his career, and i have questions about whether he's a starter on a winning team. martin is properly paid and slotted as a back end rotation guy.

regarding your first question...i don't know. we never really saw this version of the mavs team. but i think kyrie, AD, and versatile defenders at multiple positions is a pretty decent formula.

i'm not sure what more you can ask for.

and i'm not defending nico--i'd be pissed if we did something like this, too. i'm just saying that we don't really need conspiracy theories about moving the team in order to explain nico's behavior.

my only semi-conspiracy theory is that nico isn't really angling for another job in the nba as a gm. i feel like if you can accept that his plan is to work in dallas and then take another job doing a different thing--perhaps in a different industry (as he's already done)--this won't look as bad on his resume as it does to nba fans.

 

I was fine with AD. But you gotta make that Luka trade 100% so it is what it is. My biggest gripe with AD was him crying about playing the 5.. Like dude, you're forced to play the 5 because you can't space the floor. No team can win with two big man just sitting under the rim like it's the 90's again. If AD could shoot the ball, having a 5 makes sense. But not so much when you're primarily only scoring below the rim. he was also getting up there in age and his prime is past him.

As for Tim mcMahon, you are 100% correct. totaly unprofessional. that was not the outlet to try and antagonize him. At the end of the day, his job is to do what the owners want... 100% the owners agreed to it and probably, steered him towards that direction. I just have a difficult time understanding how he isn't fired yet if they truly thought it was bad...

to the Mavs credit, if Kyrie and AD were fully healthy, this team could compete for a title... it's easy to forget about that but they are a legitimately good team if both of those guys are 100%. It's unfortunate Kyrie will probably not be the player he once was after coming back so it just magnifies this trade 100x.

 

lol, he's so fun to watch on the court and such a bad interview. that one lady in the back asks what could be an interesting question that in itself implies the answer changes from year to year (what are you trying to prove in these playoffs?), and luka's just like "win a championship". her face kind of drops/looks confused. and some of this is just language processing speed, but most of it is luka just looks totally disinterested in talking to the press. ant, on the other end, seems to enjoy it and gives them funny/interesting things to work with. luka's just like "we want to win" and "jaxson highs jumps high" lol.