Trade & FA 2024-25:

[KillerLeft]

I agree - to me it feels like having a guy like Kyrie on the team legitimizes others playing with Luka/playing in Dallas, if that makes sense.  

This is the first off season in a while (ever?) where it feels like Dallas is a "legit" team with some swagger, and the finals run definitely contributes to that but I think Kyrie is just as big of a contributor.

It makes total sense. 

I've talked about this a lot in the past, and it has mostly been ignored around here, but...while all of the NBA fraternity seems to respect Luka's game to an INSANE degree, they have always seen him as a young, European player, because that's what he is. It's not good or bad, but it's different than most of them. I used to suggest that guys would flock to play with Luka when he was 27-28, and clearly one of the faces of the league, and people would invariably say something like "he's that good right now, and nobody wants to come here" which completely misses the point. 

Even if you feel strongly that Luka at 23, 24, 25 is the very best talent in the league, he's still a young kid with very little in common with these guys outside of practice/games. This season sort of proved that the guys in Luka's age range are taking over the top level of the talent pool, that's true, but (and this thread confirms what I'm about to say) all the guys we're still excited about putting around him are still on the older side. They're not going to want to go play with some Slovenian kid, no matter how good they think he is. Outside of Lauri Markkanen, nobody notable has really listed Dallas as a preferred destination so far, to my knowledge. He's younger and European. 

So, my thinking (then) was that we'd have to wait until Luka was in his late 20's, clearly established, and the league was full of new players who had looked up to him for a long time before the line to play here in Dallas got as long as we were hoping it would be. I hope I've articulated that point well enough. 

Only now, with Kyrie gushing over both Luka and this franchise, and begrudgingly, I'll admit that Kidd is a help in this area, too, I think this place is suddenly being taken much more seriously. It's like...everyoone knows Luka is the straw that stirs this drink, but they'd be coming to play with Kyrie, who is giving them permission to admit Luka is better than them, lol.

There have been shots of Luka and Kyrie's fathers embracing after playoff games. There's a real signal being sent out by both of them that they're serious about this team earning a place at the table.