02-02-2025, 11:21 AM
(02-02-2025, 11:09 AM)michaeltex Wrote: I'm as sickened by this "trade" as anyone. Mostly because of the minimalist return and because I don't know how that really makes the team better. I have loved watching Luka and the amazing skills he shows on the basketball court. This is making me regret investing in NBATV and MAVSTV subscriptions.
Trying to understand these moves, there has to be something going on with Luka's rehab. Someone reported he's up to 260+ lbs. now? 6 weeks of not playing has got to be difficult to stay in shape, even if you are dedicated, but we all doubt Luka's dedication to his health/performance issues. Added is the fact that he has minimal team contact during the offseason, so relationship building is difficult. He's already talked about wanting to retire to his farm in Slovenia, so what is his real timeline in the NBA? I mean he's already essentially a 10 year pro player that has played competitively pretty much through the entirety of several years.
IF the team viewed him in this light, they likely weren't interested in ~$70M/year for a 5 year supermax extension. Anything less and he just opts out and finds another home. For DAL, such a deal would make it difficult to keep competent players around him and significantly raise the difficultly level of trying to move his contract in the future.
Looks like the salaries result in ~$4M in cap relief for DAL this season, although AD goes from $43M this season to $54M next season. (I haven't added any trade kickers) So any salary relief is fleeting. There has to be some more going on here, but I'm not anywhere savvy enough to figure it out.
Tim McMahon said Luka was playing in the high 260s this year. That being said, the trade still sucks. I can understand wanting to trade him, but I have zero respect for how it was done and even less respect for the return they got.