Luka Doncic to the Lakers
 

What a crazy trade. The Mavs must have been completely fed up with him

Mark Cuban said this in 2020: "If I had to choose between my wife and keeping Luka on the Mavs, catch me at my lawyer’s office prepping for a divorce."

My Mavs fan friends are heartbroken. I'm not a Mavs fan but I'm puzzled. Okay, conditioning concerns, but I still don't see the sense of trading a 25-year-old superstar for an injury-prone 32-year-old lesser superstar. If I were a Lakers fan, I'd be ecstatic. As it is, I'm just hoping grief will cloud the judgment of one particular Mavs fan friend of mine so he'll trade me Doncic in our fantasy basketball league.

Doncic had a biiiiiig extension coming up. If the Mavs had questions about his availability, that could be what put them over the edge.

It's a very strange trade, but I can kind of see the motivations from both teams standpoint.

Lakers need a new face of the franchise after Lebron, and the Mavs need a dominating big man and financial flexibility.

At least the Mavs have Kyrie, who's skill-set kind of overlaps with Luca (for now). Lakers massively upgrade their guard position, but leave a huge black hole defensively, and at the Center spot.

Both players have had durability issues over the years.

I can't even guess how this may effect each team for the rest of this season.

So the trade was that Los Angeles brought in Dončić, Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris in a three-team trade with the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz. Dallas ended up with Davis, Max Christie and the Lakers' 2029 first-round pick, while the Jazz got Jalen Hood-Schifino and 2025 second-round picks from the Mavericks and L.A. Clippers.

I hate that the Lakers had to give up a dominating big man in Davis, but I agree with you Dave that the Lakers were probably looking for a new face of the franchise after Lebron retires.

Surprising to me is that as of Sunday at noon E.T., DraftKings Sportsbook lists the Lakers at +1,700 (bet $100 to win $1,700) to win the championship. By comparison, Dallas checks in at +3,500.

Word is the Lakers will be trading for a center before the deadline.

And I think you're right - if the Mavs didn't have Kyrie there is no way they do this trade, even with Doncic's conditioning and attitude issues.

My guess, for this season anyway (assuming Doncic comes back and plays) that the Lakers will get a bit better, Mavs will be about the same.

Kyrie is also almost 33, and has his own durability and attitude issues, so trading Doncic out and putting Kyrie in a more prominent role is certainly not a long term solution, even if it might be ok for just this season (or part of this season).

Apparently this trade got Dallas under the Luxury Tax apron, and there was also a concern Doncic was going to opt out before his big contract extension came up.

Just a really weird trade. You have to wonder if Dallas knows something about him, the rest of us don't.

Looks like Mark Cuban had nothing to do with it. He's no longer a majority owner with the team, and had no say in the trade. If it's just a money saving measure by the new owners, it's pretty f*cking sad.

None of this is to sh*t on Anthony Davis either, who is an excellent and likely under-rated ballplayer at this point...but he's not the type of player who teams build around to win Championships anymore. They used to build teams around players like him, but not anymore. The game has changed. An awesome complimentary player, a definite HOF'er...but not..."The Guy".

I think they're going to try and roll with Kyrie and AD for the foreseeable future. It would not surprise me if they both sign new deals to stay there. Health is definitely a question mark for both of them but when healthy they are right up there with the best 1-2s in the league

It will be interesting to see how he meshes with LeBron.

I am in the camp of people who believe that the Mavs know something about Doncic. Probably an off court, character issue that could create headline risk for the franchise.

I thought this was interesting:

It's now in Doncic's best interest to opt out after next season, so Lakers may only have him for a season and a half.

Explains why they didn't have to give up more draft capital for him, especially if Doncic wasn't aware of the trade talks and wasn't able to engage with the Lakers in future contract negotiations.

Other top 1-2s right now.

Giannis-Dame
Joker-Jamal
Shai-Chet
Mitchell-Garland
Tatum-Brown
Luka-LeBron
Brunson-KAT
Booker-KD
Embiid-Maxey
Tyrese-Pascal
Ja-JJJ
Wemby-Fox

I would put Kyrie-AD in the top half of that list.

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If Luka is still 260 pounds a year and a half from now, I don't think he will be getting max offers.

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Mavs GM and Lakers GM knew each other well thru Kobe Bryant. Not as shocking once I knew that.

I have the feeling LeBron is not going to be very tolerant of a player of that caliber being out of shape.

I agree. I think LeBron could be a great influence on Luka.

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LeBron will now have to adapt his game somewhat, I would think, both because of the absence of Davis and the presence of Doncic. Then again, LeBron is probably the most versatile (if not the best) player ever to walk onto a court, and if his teammates were four Martians he'd figure out his best role.

If Lakers can get a center, they can be formidable. They'll be fun to watch.

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Interesting read.

https://x.com/LoewyLawFirm/status/1886211634097746331

It's the strategy from Major League.

"Here's a list of guys we want."
"I don't even know half these guys. The rest are past their prime. Hell, some of them never had a prime. And this one is dead."
"Well, cross him off then."


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Supposedly they're trying. They're going to have to score 140 a night though because their already suspect defense got a lot worse with this trade.

“Bring that sh*t to me man”. One of my favorite sports movies!

maybe the Mavs GM (Nico Harrison) is just an idiot
 

he's proven so in the past:

"During his work at Nike, he botched a 2013 presentation to Stephen Curry, where according to Harrison he may have called him Seth, and the presentation used was made for Kevin Durant. This, along with not offering Curry a signature shoe, caused the superstar to switch from Nike and sign with Under Armour."

The scene where Charlie Sheen enters the game to "Wild Thing" is priceless.