(02-02-2025, 03:12 PM)WillE Wrote: Same here.

I do understand that he tries to sell it like that. Any longyear manager at a global company has learned to sell failure as success.

Yet, why I don't get is that anybody that was involved agreed this and nobody stopped him. It was 3 weeks in the making and he couldn't decide it all by himself. Would be good to know, if Kidd and/or Finley and who ever okay'd this too.

And yet even if the he would have decided this all by himself, the biggest question is why (only) AD? I understand that he felt forced to deal Luka and that if he would make his intentions public, he had to fear to get even less so he therefore had basically only one or two shots, he needed to act very fast and pull the trigger very quick.

I and it feels like the entire basketball world just thinks different at this point. I just can't buy it, that sheer fear triggered this strategy. Given his previous deals, I have s really hard time believing this.

So rationally, based on the publically known facts, the only conclusion left to me is his asset valuation is...just otherworldly. But even this makes no sense, again, given his previous deals.

Which leads me to believe: the truth is yet to be told.

What could make sense is that he knows Lukas health is a problem and sold my above thinking to the Lakers only to get them to not insisting on thy physicals.

The other motivations would be non-basketball related like what was already thrown around that this was a favour to the league to bring Luka to LA to help sell the product NBA better. Or to facilitate to the franchise to Vegas. Or the help Nike. So basically anybody that had interests in moving Luka to LA. But I somehow still hope that this was all basketball-related.

Sadly, even if I nailed it somewhere above, we'll probably never find out.

(02-02-2025, 03:41 PM)Chicagojk Wrote: Sounds like Nico is using Cleveland as a prototype.  Not many organizations was doing that before this year.  They are also missing that Mitchell or Garland player.  That is a big missing piece.

(02-02-2025, 01:28 AM)RoyTarpleysGhost Wrote: It’s about not investing $350 million in a guy they don’t believe is dedicated.

(02-02-2025, 04:05 PM)fifteenth Wrote: Most astute post I've seen so far, halfway through the thread.

(02-02-2025, 04:11 PM)omahen Wrote: Hi all. I left this place after first 10 games of this season but admit I started lurking around again some 10 days ago, as it is a great place to get up to date news on anything going on. Thanks to everyone doing the effort to make it that way. While I enjoyed some conversations and really respect some people here, the overall negative attitude was not to my liking. At this stage in life I prefer to focus on the positive.

I am absolutely stunned by this trade. I went to bed late yesterday, probably just minutes before it happened and found out later today. I had to triple check that this is really serious. Some 10 hours later I still can't understand the rationing behind it. Even if one trully doesn't believe in Luka (after they just played in finals last season), they imho should at least give him another chance and explore the best possible trade in the summer. I am fully in camp with everyone being in disbelief how little they got in return.

I am really dissapointed, because I hoped Luka would stay in Dallas for his whole career and leave an ever lasting impact. To lose trust in a player of such caliber so soon, is really mind boggling. Even more so, one can argue they were able to put a good team around him for exactly a season and a half, while he was busting his ass off with mediocre teams in years before that, dragging them to WCF. And for that only season they put a good team around him, they immediately went to the finals. I just can't accept trading him was the only possible solution.

I am not worried about Luka. Everytime he was hit, he came back stronger. This just might be a push for him to find even additional motivation. One thing for sure, he was stunned, he feels betrayed and he will certainly hold a grudge for the rest of his career. It will be difficult thing for me to shift focus on Lakers. I was never really the showtime fan. While I respect LeBron, I was also never really his admirer, Jordan is the GOAT .

Mavs now imho have a couple of years window to win it all. It will be very interesting to see what Kyrie does in the summer. Can we be sure he wants to stay? Assuming he does, AD and him will still have some value left after a couple of years and Mavs will have some flexibility to pivot, but getting a generational star is extremely difficult. I am worried about long term future.

On the other hand, I am looking forward to a very eventful time with Lakers. That team is not built for Luka. LeBron is aging and will be less and less valuable each year as father time is unforgiving. Reaves is not a great fit next to Luka, perhaps as a 6th man. Other than that they have a couple of interesting role players, but not much more. Their asset chest is pretty empty as they only have one tradeable FRP and one SRP and they imho desperately need a good two way guard and a center. However, Lakers always find a way to attract the talent.

Tonight will be one of the very, very rare Mavs games I missed in last 5 or 6 years. I need to find a good Lakers board now I wish you all luck and happines in your lives.

(02-02-2025, 03:55 PM)fifteenth Wrote: I haven't read the entire thread yet, but when I saw the trade news, I immediately thought that the Mavs were probably tired of his refusal to take care of himself. They've been dealing with that for like 6 years now. This hurts, but it makes sense to me. Luka must be even more frustrating about his refusal to take care of himself then we even realized. I don't know if giving up now was the "right" move by Nico, but I respect it.

If this changes Luka's like and he's able to learn to take care of himself, then good for Luka. I wish he would have figured it out as a Mav, but he didn't.

(02-02-2025, 04:16 PM)hakeemfaan Wrote: Many didn’t want Luka to be traded at all. There are others who are ok with Luka being traded but what they got back is appalling.  Especially more so with the news filtering out that Nico didn’t do his due diligence and most teams were not even given an option to make that offer. 

When that sort of thing happens it is either gross incompetence or some sort of collusion:corruption to get  Luka to LA.  There is no other explanation for not listening to all offers and have teams tripping over themselves.  The other thing you ask in any trade is what the GMs of Boston, Lakers, Heat or Utah would have done if they were in Nico’s position yesterday. Even if you believe that this is the right time to trade Luka, each of those GMs would have got much more for Luka.

Even if Luka isn’t in the best of shape 4 years from now and he is pushing 30, the Lakers will get more for him then that what Nico got yesterday.  

I don’t have an issue with them deciding to move on. I have zero respect for how Nico went about this.

(02-02-2025, 04:14 PM)RoyTarpleysGhost Wrote: I’m not that mad at moving on from Luka. I could never get myself to like him.

Anthony Davis is a top 10-12 player.

The thing that pisses me off is that very soon as Kyrie, AD, and Klay get older our future looks really bad.  Nico and Kidd can move to their next job. We as fans will still be here.

You had to get a lot more future capital in any Luka trade.

(02-02-2025, 04:03 PM)MAVS-SLO Wrote: Luka Updates
@LukaUpdates
Luka Dončić dad:

With this trade, hypocrisy (from Mavs organization) hurts me personally. I think Luka absolutely did not deserve this. I know he sacrificed a lot. I know Luka really respected Dallas. He respected the whole city, he helped children and it was not a problem for him to go to hospitals and charity events. He played 100 games last season for like 40 minutes per game, constantly being doubled... I feel it's really unfair from certain people from Dallas"

Luka Updates
@LukaUpdates
Luka Dončić dad:

"Luka's injury is basically gone. He's already training, everything is going as planned and everything is fine"

(02-02-2025, 04:39 PM)DallasMaverick Wrote: Kinda shocking that Luka’s dad would side with his son instead of his employer.

(02-02-2025, 04:34 PM)SleepingHero Wrote: @NationMffl
PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford are on the bench.

Kyrie isn’t.

Not trying to make assumptions, but I doubt he’s in a good mood right now.