Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[mvossman]

Before Luka was dealt, I worried about Grimes.  For me, Grimes' talent exceeded his minutes, but, either JKidd didn't agree or knew they weren't keeping him.  Is he gone because he didn't sign an extension, they had no intention of signing him to a large contract or because they traded for a better player?

I felt like Kidd didn't play Grimes enough given his talent, but I have come around on the idea that the biggest issue was that he had too much overlap with Klay.  He was effectively Klay's backup.  Too often what Kidd wanted off the bench was playmaking, size or defense.  With Klay on the team there are not enough minutes for what he will likely cost.  My preference would have been Grimes instead of Klay given their ages, but that ship has sailed.

[FireNicoHarrison]

Mavs are stucked in play-in territory, they are absolutely not in a great position to win a title. You are dreamer.

AD is an injury meme and he is 32yo, Kyrie is 33yo guy with a history of failures.
The new kids are good but no one has all star potential.
Dante Exum is our starter playmaker. Come on.

Let's face the reality, Mavs better scenario is PO every year and maybe win 1 series sometimes.

After this season failure (AD and Lively are done for the season, trust me) the pressure on Nico will be insane and he will trade all our assets and young guns for KD.

Dallas Mavericks are the new Phoenix Suns. That's it.

[KillerLeft]

I felt like Kidd didn't play Grimes enough given his talent, but I have come around on the idea that the biggest issue was that he had too much overlap with Klay.  He was effectively Klay's backup.  Too often what Kidd wanted off the bench was playmaking, size or defense.  With Klay on the team there are not enough minutes for what he will likely cost.  My preference would have been Grimes instead of Klay given their ages, but that ship has sailed.

This is a pretty healthy take on it, I think. 

I wasn't as familiar with Grimes as I believed I was prior to the season. What I found watching him this season was a movement shooter first (a better one than I expected) and a defender in a distant second. I think he's got defensive skills, don't get me wrong, but he's not nearly as impactful on that end as I had hoped, personally. I think your point that he overlapped with Thompson is a very, very good one. 

I also think that in a general sense, defenders at or near Grimes' size are less valuable than they used to be. As much complaining as I do about the Gafford types, who lack mobility, there ALSO aren't many Chris Paul sized threats out there at this point, and it seems like what's needed at POA defender nowadays are guys the size of Exum, DJJ, DFS, Herb Jones, etc. Christie is longer (or at least plays longer) and I am already much more bought into him than I ever was in Grimes, despite being a fan of the move and excited about him, initially. Martin, too, has the potential to make a much bigger impact on defense, I think.

[audiosway]

It's an interesting thought experiment. 

Your SGA/Durant thing is a good, extreme example, but even then, we all have a built-in bias that SGA is going to win a championship with OKC at some point. And, we really don't KNOW that. In your scenario, we'd NEVER know that, but it would sure feel to OKC fans that they were trading away tons of chances at it.

I think the difference here is that there's a plausible reality in which Luka would never have won a championship here, and some of us have had that sneaky feeling for a while. Is the club giving up on him confirmation that the feeling was fair, or is the club giving up on him "Stockholm syndroming" us into forgetting how great Luka really is? I have oscillated back and forth for the past two weeks, but what's clear is that for some, Luka winning multiple championships here seems to have been a "when" more than an "if." Those are the people struggling the most with this, I think.

When Luka first got drafted to Dallas I thought for sure this kid will win a championship. Then, after his rookie year I thought Dynasty. As time went on though I started to wonder. The team would get down early in games and have to claw back to win. Luka got slower and slower. He would come into camp with Fat Luka memes flowing. They made the WCF and it was amazing.

Then, the next year they tank at the end after the Kyrie trade and get Lively. They make it to the Finals and get blown out. Luka comes into this year overweight and out of shape/injured. He plays and gets out again (now we know it was to lose weight) plays, gets hurt yet again and is out for 6 weeks and traded.

I've had my doubts this year about him. I started worrying more about Luka last year. The complaining to the refs was getting old. The constant missing free throws was getting old. The not playing defense was getting old. (And I know from playing competitive basketball in the past that defense is about energy. You don't play it if you don't have it). I started getting hints of Harden. I hated watching Harden because of the complaining and being so out of shape. You are a professional basketball player paid millions. Is it really that hard?

The trade caught me off guard and gave me quite a bit of emotional back and forth. However, after processing it I understand it. I am not sure I would have had the gumption (trying to keep it PC ) to do it but I definitely understand it. I also think it's the right way to give this team a chance at a title.

In 45 years the Mavs have been to the Finals now 3 times. They have 1 title with the greatest Mav ever in Dirk. I was even starting to wonder if Luka would win one. And that's coming from someone that predicted he would be a generational player in the draft. Go back and look. I have him as the overall best player followed by Jaren Jackson Jr.

[mvossman]

Larry Bird ate cake and drank and did all of that stuff while MJ took care of his body. Larry retired due to injuries after 12 years. (He played 13 but 1 year only played 6 games)

MJ played 15 years and LeBron may play 30 at this rate. MJ retired for a year, came back and played 4, retired for 3 years and came back for 2 more (both as an all star).

Guys that don't take care of their body are fine until around 28. Then, it starts showing up. Luka has already lost a good bit of speed and is constantly injured. He will be great in LA because of showtime. He is flashy and fun. But, let's not pretend he is perfect. 

It's interesting you use Larry Bird as a Luka comparison.  Bird won MVP in his 27-29 seasons, and was top 3 the following two.  I would be perfectly fine bitching about Luka's conditioning while watching him compete for MVPs during all of his extension years.

[KillerLeft]

I would be perfectly fine bitching about Luka's conditioning while watching him compete for MVPs during all of his extension years.

I think we all would. The question is: will that be what happens, or better yet, is that what would have happened?

[mvossman]

I think we all would. The question is: will that be what happens, or better yet, is that what would have happened?

Of course we don't know.  But I think Bird and Jokic (who had similar questions earlier in his career) are fairly good comps for Luka.  I don't know if he will ever reach quite that level, but if I had to guess it would be that he is in the MVP conversation more often than not in the next 6 years.  If I were to take a similar guess on AD, its that he is close to the end of his peak, and that as he approaches his mid 30s his perimeter defense will start to suffer and the injuries will become more common.  These are just guesses, but if they are in the ballpark then that was obviously a terrible trade.

[F Gump]

Larry Bird ate cake and drank and did all of that stuff while MJ took care of his body. Larry retired due to injuries after 12 years. (He played 13 but 1 year only played 6 games)

There is no comparison at all between Bird and Luka. About the opposites, really. Bird's off-court work ethic on his conditioning and on his skills was legendary.

The "cake" stuff was not his habit at all -- it was what happened during his year off for back surgery due to injury, and was noteworthy because he abandoned the good eating and conditioning habits he had due to being "bored" as he tried to heal at home and had nothing to do. 

Also, the injury itself was not a result of lack of conditioning, but rather resulted from him shoveling gravel in the 1985 off-season and hurting his back in doing so. Despite the injury, he worked and conditioned his way through the injury, winning the MVP in that ensuing season while playing all 82 games at 38 mpg, and he finished 3rd and 2nd the following 2 seasons while playing no less than 74 games each season. The season after that, at age 32, was when he was finally forced to have back surgery because it was so bad, missing that season.

After the year off, he worked back into top shape to try to win another title. He gritted it out for 3 more seasons with more and more games being missed because his back was hurting too bad, until he gave up. Even at the end, he was a great player when he could take the court.

[F Gump]

It's interesting you use Larry Bird as a Luka comparison.  Bird won MVP in his 27-29 seasons, and was top 3 the following two.  I would be perfectly fine bitching about Luka's conditioning while watching him compete for MVPs during all of his extension years.

Luka is in his 7th season. By comparison, Bird won his 3rd MVP in his 7th season, and in his 1st 9 seasons he was never lower than 4th (including 3 wins, and 4 2nds). FWIW he also made 3 All-Defense teams and finished as high as 3rd for DPOY one year. No one ever bitched about Bird's conditioning - far from it. Bird averaged over 3000 minutes per season for his first 9 seasons, averaging about 80 games per season and about 39 mpg, while playing at that MVP level.

If Luka is going to have that kind of career, he's way behind.

[SleepingHero]

Barring injury solid starter is the floor. I would put the ceiling at elite 3&D. Dreaming would be borderline all-star.

See this is where I think the Christie stuff is swinging too far in the other direction. This is legit the first time in his career where he's scored 15 or more in a game 7 times in a row. This is his 3rd year. 

He's 21. So he's still very young and could grow into a great player, so don't take this as me writing him off. I actually have loved what I've seen when he's played. He's a good player. He would've been a great trade target for a dude like Gafford+Grimes+FRP. Not as a tack on for Luka freaking Doncic. 

And that's not hate for Christie. There's levels to this.  I just need to see more, for a while, to believe that he can be anything more than a solid role player. And expecting him as a future "elite" guy at his role is copium.

[ThisIStheYear]

The best chance to win the title is to have the best player, and Luka is undoubtedly the best performing postseason player currently in the NBA — 2nd highest scoring average ever and lots of assists and rebounds. He even led the postseason in steals last year. Instead of the best player paired with a player in the 10-20 range, the Mavs now have 2 players in the 10-20 range. That means, the model for Dallas goes from big 2 to big 3. Davis just isn’t good enough to carry the team as a number one. He’s an old fashioned player and a number 2. Without an MVP caliber player, the Mavs need a third all star caliber player. Oh, and Bird played with McHale, Parish, and DJ — three hall of farmers in their prime, plus guys like Ainge and Walton. Put him on the Mavs and he’s not looking as great. What the Mavs really need is to miss the playoffs (they’re not going anywhere), get a lucky draw in the lottery, and end up with Harper or Flagg. Both will be all stars. The Mavs are due for a break.

[SleepingHero]

I think the difference here is that there's a plausible reality in which Luka would never have won a championship here, and some of us have had that sneaky feeling for a while. Is the club giving up on him confirmation that the feeling was fair, or is the club giving up on him "Stockholm syndroming" us into forgetting how great Luka really is? I have oscillated back and forth for the past two weeks, but what's clear is that for some, Luka winning multiple championships here seems to have been a "when" more than an "if." Those are the people struggling the most with this, I think.

This was very well written and I am going to be mulling this paragraph over the next few weeks as I try to reason with what you've written here. Mostly, if it isn't obvious by now, I was apart of the crew that thought a Luka championship was an inevitability. In fact I thought he'd win multiple rings.

Of course thats a very hard thing to do. And it is ironic to me because I have also had moments in the last couple of years, especially during the regular season, where I thought "hmmm, maybe Luka won't win." But those thoughts did not last long as Luka usually put up an incredible game the following day or had an incredible individual playoff performance that just reinforced my belief this dude was the guy. 

And it stings extra hard, as the Mavs are literally fresh off a finals performance with Luka not looking his best. Who's to say Luka with this team wouldn't have won it all?  They had all the ingredients that worked for him last year, with a lot of additional pieces that we all said we needed after the finals. These are questions we will never have the answer to and as a guy apart of the "Luka WILL win a ring" crowd, it's extremely hard to move on. 

In an ideal world where I had some clairvoyant ability to know this trade was coming and I could choose when they made it, I would've wanted to see at least 1 more playoff run with Luka before they cut ties. Even if they were so sure he was going to break down, I am very confident LA would've given up AD in the summer too just because they were that desperate to find a mega superstar post Lebron. Even with a potentially poor playoff showing by Luka, he'd still have fetched the exact same guys we got 2 weeks ago. That is 1 thing I am very confident on.

[FireNicoHarrison]

The best chance to win the title is to have the best player, and Luka is undoubtedly the best performing postseason player currently in the NBA — 2nd highest scoring average ever and lots of assists and rebounds. He even led the postseason in steals last year. Instead of the best player paired with a player in the 10-20 range, the Mavs now have 2 players in the 10-20 range. That means, the model for Dallas goes from big 2 to big 3. Davis just isn’t good enough to carry the team as a number one. He’s an old fashioned player and a number 2. Without an MVP caliber player, the Mavs need a third all star caliber player.  Oh, and Bird played with McHale, Parish, and DJ — three hall of farmers in their prime, plus guys like Ainge and Walton. Put him on the Mavs and he’s not looking as great.  What the Mavs really need is to miss the playoffs (they’re not going anywhere), get a lucky draw in the all star game, and end up with Harper or Flagg.  Both will be all stars. The Mavs are due for a break.

Unfortunately Irving is no more a top 20 and street clothes... Who knows, maybe he will never play more 40 games in a season.

Maybe Luka will never win a ring but Irving and AD will never win a ring for sure so i take the eventuality.

[KillerLeft]

This was very well written and I am going to be mulling this paragraph over the next few weeks as I try to reason with what you've written here. Mostly, if it isn't obvious by now, I was apart of the crew that thought a Luka championship was an inevitability. In fact I thought he'd win multiple rings.

Of course thats a very hard thing to do. And it is ironic to me because I have also had moments in the last couple of years, especially during the regular season, where I thought "hmmm, maybe Luka won't win." But those thoughts did not last long as Luka usually put up an incredible game the following day or had an incredible individual playoff performance that just reinforced my belief this dude was the guy. 

And it stings extra hard, as the Mavs are literally fresh off a finals performance with Luka not looking his best. Who's to say Luka with this team wouldn't have won it all?  They had all the ingredients that worked for him last year, with a lot of additional pieces that we all said we needed after the finals. These are questions we will never have the answer to and as a guy apart of the "Luka WILL win a ring" crowd, it's extremely hard to move on. 

In an ideal world where I had some clairvoyant ability to know this trade was coming and I could choose when they made it, I would've wanted to see at least 1 more playoff run with Luka before they cut ties. Even if they were so sure he was going to break down, I am very confident LA would've given up AD in the summer too just because they were that desperate to find a mega superstar post Lebron. Even with a potentially poor playoff showing by Luka, he'd still have fetched the exact same guys we got 2 weeks ago. That is 1 thing I am very confident on.

So fair, so valid. Right there with you, in a sense. 

The thing is, the guy(s) who traded him want to win. They could absolutely be wrong, but they also had the privilege(?) of watching Luka go about his day-to-day with a closeness we could never imagine. I guess it comes down to whether or not you think Harrison is just delusional or sane. Assuming there was a rational reason for this, and right or wrong, I believe there must have been, imagine how significant that rational reason must’ve been in order for him to pull this particular trigger. 

Then again, maybe I’m struggling like Steve Carell’s character in The Big Short.

[The Jom]

That's a lot of assumptive "if's" that negative things are sure to happen, while positive things would have been sure to happen on the road not taken.

Yes we can and should stop and declare Nico a dolt for the negotiating itself, because it was awful work.

But in particular let's see how Luka does in winning a title. His road ahead to claiming rings has MANY huge question marks, maybe even more than the Mavs.

Really? You think Mavs have as good a chance at a ring as Luka? I think the Lakers are more likely to win 3 of the next 10 than the Mavs are to win one.

[LukaMVP]

The best chance to win the title is to have the best player, and Luka is undoubtedly the best performing postseason player currently in the NBA — 2nd highest scoring average ever and lots of assists and rebounds. He even led the postseason in steals last year. Instead of the best player paired with a player in the 10-20 range, the Mavs now have 2 players in the 10-20 range. That means, the model for Dallas goes from big 2 to big 3. Davis just isn’t good enough to carry the team as a number one. He’s an old fashioned player and a number 2. Without an MVP caliber player, the Mavs need a third all star caliber player.  Oh, and Bird played with McHale, Parish, and DJ — three hall of farmers in their prime, plus guys like Ainge and Walton. Put him on the Mavs and he’s not looking as great.  What the Mavs really need is to miss the playoffs (they’re not going anywhere), get a lucky draw in the all star game, and end up with Harper or Flagg.  Both will be all stars. The Mavs are due for a break.

I think they will make the decision of whether to tank or to continue fighting based on the reevaluation of davis lively and gaff. if two or more of them are out for the season, the tank will officially begin. we have a rather tough schedule before their reevaluation but losing some more games now will probably turn out to be a blessing in disguise. missing the playoffs will guarantee a top 14 pick in a draft that's said to be stacked, which wouldn't be much worse than getting bounced in the first round.

[khaled1987]

So fair, so valid. Right there with you, in a sense. 

The thing is, the guy(s) who traded him want to win.

Are they? Didn't Stein report that there was no way Mavs were offering him supermax deal? 

This seems like a financially motivated deal first, with winning being second. And that arrangement is significant in sports, if money is the main reason then you aren't doing it for winning.

[DL2RimRocker]

Are they? Didn't Stein report that there was no way Mavs were offering him supermax deal? 

This seems like a financially motivated deal first, with winning being second. And that arrangement is significant in sports, if money is the main reason then you aren't doing it for winning.

Would you give a supermax deal to a top 3 defender who gives you absolutely nothing offensively?

I think that is what Nico is thinking if it is about money. Maybe his philosophy is to have a roster full of two way players who can bring g it on both ends than to commit a huge part of the cap to someone who would require several defensive e only players who give almost nothing offensively.

It does make me wonder if the thinking might have been different if Herb Jones would have been healthy and we would have been able to acquire him.

[HoosierDaddyKid]

Are they? Didn't Stein report that there was no way Mavs were offering him supermax deal? 

This seems like a financially motivated deal first, with winning being second. And that arrangement is significant in sports, if money is the main reason then you aren't doing it for winning.

But OTOH, Philly gave Embiid and George max deals and they did it with an eye towards winning. Now look at them. It worked out very well for Boston.  Embiid will probably get shutdown for the rest of the season, and George has been a disaster all year. Philly is going to have to restructure their whole team, and Embiid's future is in doubt as he needs more surgery. Things don't always work out as planned. Bottom line, Dallas felt they could not win it all with Luka.

[FireNicoHarrison]

About money? Are you sure?
Let me understand they don't want to pay supermax to Luka in 3 years so will they pay Davis supermax from NOW? Brillant.
And he is 7years older and a lot more injury prone than Luka. It's a no sense. Come on.

Are you really trust this?
Honestly it is just an insult to human intelligence.

Mavs franchise lost 300M of value the day after the trade and they keep losing money everyday from merchandising and tickets.
Do you know how many millions worths Luka Doncic outside of USA?

If it was just a money deal would be one of the greatest failures in human history.

Harrison, Dumont and Adelsons will have their payoff for that move, they didn't lose all the credibility in the world without without a cash back.

If It was just a money deal they wouldn't be censoring Doncic's past in Dallas trying to erase him from fans' minds and they wouldn't be applying North Korean policy to the AAC... it's something much bigger. Open your eyes.