Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[SleepingHero]

Here's a conspiracy theory no one has mentioned. Suppose this was all a hostile takeover orchestrated by Kyrie. His quote "it's a ruthless business". His history of teaming up with stars. Was Kyrie really ok with taking a backseat to an overweight European who likes a postgame beer? Was Kyrie really shocked? I'm not so sure. Kyrie is super close to Kidd and Nico. AD was asked about his immediate reaction to the trade was "When do I get to Dallas"?

The interesting thing is Kyrie tried to do the same thing to Tatum & Brown in Boston and got caught.

There's just something fishy about all of this that makes me wonder.

Given that Kyrie was on the verge of tears when asked about the trade, no I don’t think he had anything to do with this nor is he happy that Luka got traded away.

[vfromlmf]

Love Dorian

https://x.com/jovanbuha/status/1887247164830851317

[BigDirk41]

Love Dorian

https://x.com/jovanbuha/status/1887247164830851317

Lmao that's hilarious

[Chicagojk]

man, I am trying not to think about it, but it is going to be so painful for years.

[vfromlmf]

My two favorite players are Lakers smh

[mvossman]

This is old now, but an interesting analysis of Luka’s game:

https://youtu.be/dZfufGaRhHg?feature=shared

This was addressed months ago.  It had a lot of holes in it including completely ignoring his impact in the playoffs.

Its very strange that you would bring this up now.  If you are trying to distance from the opinion around here that you work for the Mavs, you are not doing yourself any favors.

[Chicagojk]

Sort of sad we have traded Luka and Grimes and somehow have fewer draft capital than before. Impressive.

[RoyTarpleysGhost]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1i...ective_as/


Insight #8: Nico Harrison surrounded himself with yes men, and the Mavericks' franchise is paying for it.
My time with the Mavericks overlapped with Nico's time as GM for about one year - his first year in charge of an NBA front office.
In that time I realized that Nico did not have a good grasp of which front-office members actually understood basketball. Nor was he able to comprehend that certain people just kept parroting what he was saying, with the goal to be liked by Nico and thus to be promoted.
In some ways, this trade marks the culmination of those developments. With critical voices drowned out and only sycophants rising up the ranks, the people now close to Nico weren't the type that would provide any pushback on this historically awful trade idea.

[Deebo]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1i...ective_as/


Insight #8: Nico Harrison surrounded himself with yes men, and the Mavericks' franchise is paying for it.
My time with the Mavericks overlapped with Nico's time as GM for about one year - his first year in charge of an NBA front office.
In that time I realized that Nico did not have a good grasp of which front-office members actually understood basketball. Nor was he able to comprehend that certain people just kept parroting what he was saying, with the goal to be liked by Nico and thus to be promoted.
In some ways, this trade marks the culmination of those developments. With critical voices drowned out and only sycophants rising up the ranks, the people now close to Nico weren't the type that would provide any pushback on this historically awful trade idea.

He doesn’t care about Dallas.  Cuban sold team to owners who don’t know basketball.  They didn’t want pay Luka that big contract and told him trade Luka.  Nico only wanted Ad. He didn’t care what got back.   Nico is not planning on being here more than 2-3 years.  We will suck after that for a very long time.

[StrandedOnBeauboisHill]

Sort of sad we have traded Luka and Grimes and somehow have fewer draft capital than before.  Impressive.

don't worry man, we also got older!

[fifteenth]

As each day goes by I realize more and more how insanely bad this sucks

[hakeemfaan]

They might as well have moved the franchise to LV. that’s how I feel. Sorry killer , fif. I know I have been rambling and using these boards for self therapy. I honestly cut back from a lot of hoops after Dirk retired. I didn’t like Luka’s style but I also realized I am a boomer now. The kids loved him and he was their sports hero. Also the younger gen while they care about their franchise getting a title, I don’t believe that’s the be all/ end all. They were happy to have a guy who could be infuriating and then do something like he did in the deciding games against the Suns and Minny where he single-handedly sent them home before even the half was over.

While I hated his style, I also knew I was watching something I had never seen before. The different ways to score long range, medium range and post up..only KD and Jokic compare.but even Jokic can’t create his own 3 point shot. Many a times I had to rewind and watch how easy he made scoring look. Yes you have to put up with frustrations of some bad shots as well and that’s the part you assumed would change as he aged.

So it’s just grief and pardon me for spamming these boards the past few days. Each time I see him with a Lakers uni for the next decade, unlike Phoenix or Sac or Atl, I will remember he was ours and he was happy here and we gave him away. We so feared that he would want to go to LA one day that we never saw a GM with ties to the LA sports elite come here and stab us all in the back and move Luka to LA.

We didn’t just lose a generational talent. Many of us like me are without a team now as I just can’t trust this iteration of ownership and management anymore. Any stud can be traded for pennies on the dollar to the Lakers once they are developed I never cared much about the Cowboys or Rangers. No college team as I went to commuter schools. It was just the Mavs and now that is gone. What hurts more is watching two young kids who were huge hoops fans also walking around numb and dazed. Words can’t describe how much this move has hurt so many.

[Jym]

As each day goes by I realize more and more how insanely bad this sucks

like a family member who is up walking around, looking normal but they got placed on hospice a few weeks back and won't survive long

[KillerLeft]

man, I am trying not to think about it, but it is going to be so painful for years.

decades

[fifteenth]

They might as well have moved the franchise to LV.  that’s how I feel.  Sorry killer , fif. I know I have been rambling and using these boards for self therapy. I honestly cut back from a lot of hoops after Dirk retired.  I didn’t like Luka’s style but I also realized I am a boomer now. The kids loved him and he was their sports hero. Also the younger gen while they care about their franchise getting a title, I don’t believe that’s the be all/ end all.  They were happy to have a guy who could be infuriating and then do something like he did in the deciding games against the Suns and Minny where he single-handedly sent them home before even the half was over.

While I hated his style, I also knew I was watching something I had never seen before. The different ways to score long range, medium range and post up..only KD and Jokic compare.but even Jokic can’t create his own 3 point shot.  Many a times I had to rewind and watch how easy he made scoring look.  Yes you have to put up with frustrations of some bad shots as well and that’s the part you assumed would change as he aged.

So it’s just grief  and pardon me for spamming these boards the past few days.  Each time I see him with a Lakers uni for the next decade, unlike Phoenix or Sac or Atl, I will remember he was ours and he was happy here and we gave him away. We so feared that he would want to go to LA one day that we never saw a GM with ties to the LA sports elite come here and stab us all in the back and move Luka to LA.

We didn’t just lose a generational talent. Many of us like me are without a team now as I just can’t trust this iteration of ownership and management anymore. Any stud can be traded for pennies on the dollar to the Lakers once they are developed  I never cared much about the Cowboys or Rangers. No college team as I went to commuter schools. It was just the Mavs and now that is gone. What hurts more is watching two young kids who were huge hoops fans also walking around numb and dazed. Words can’t describe how much this move has hurt so many.

Love you hf! This seems to be to be the perfect place to do as much ranting as you want. Lots of us have been together since Dirk was a rookie. And we were fans before the internet existed. It seems appropriate to mourn what feels like the loss of our franchise, especially while the team is still run by the executioner.

[SleepingHero]

decades

It will be a forever stain on the franchise, like letting Nash walk, letting the title team go. etc. 

But this one will be 10000000x worse. The reverberations of this trade made its way into every corner of the world, with seemingly EVERY person confused by it. They didn't even have to know basketball to know this trade was that bad. And this will hurt and be worse than any other mistake this franchise ever had. Solely because Luka is that dude. If Luka lives up to his "Legend" status that we are all pretty confident he will, then this will never go away.

BEST case scenario is that Nico somehow predicted the downfall of Luka's career at the EXACT perfect time. Like the type of situation where his next contract is his last because injuries were just too great and he has zero playoff success. Is that really a scenario I want to root for??? No shot. Luka is OUR guy. The only way the Mavs don't come out as total dweebs is if Luka's career is about to come to a close and I don't want to root for that. 

With time this will get easier. Especially if we somehow luck our way into another generational talent. Hopefully Nico is long gone by the time that happens or else he might trade that dude too.

[khaled1987]

If Luka lives up to his "Legend" status that we are all pretty confident he will, then this will never go away.

If he does, this will be the "Bowie over MJ" of trades.

[OBX Maverick]

man, I am trying not to think about it, but it is going to be so painful for years.

I’m trying to rationalize this trade in some way, but I can’t. I was hoping the feelings of losing Kidd in 1996 to Phoenix, Nash to Phoenix in 2004, and Brunson a couple years ago, (and heck even Aguirre in the 80’s) all in such agonizing but somewhat similar manners might give me a thick enough skin to withstand the sting of this trade…..They didn’t. When you think about it, it’s amazing I’ve stuck around as a fan all these years after so many massive personnel bungles. But for some reason, i keep coming back. 

Aside from Niko’s competence or lack thereof, i sure hope we don’t have another H Ross Perot Jr situation regarding the ownership of this team. I think that when the Adelsons bought this team most were excited as they felt we could now keep up with some of the deep-pocketed owners. It appears that we were probably wrong. To what extent we will probably find out soon. I hope I’m wrong.

[fifteenth]

Imagine it's 2006 and Dirk just lost in his first finals appearance. We're hurting. But we're still all in on Dirk. He is our guy. We drafted him and then watched him grow into a top 5 player in the league.

Then imagine the team trades Dirk, with no warning, for an older, inferior player.

That's what Nico did.

[SleepingHero]

If he does, this will be the "Bowie over MJ" of trades.