Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[hakeemfaan]

Alright.

We’ve heard plenty of speculation about how one-sided the trade was in LA’s favor, and how stupid Nico was to do it.

How about some speculation on the other side?

What if Nico was the genius? What if he foresaw a quick decline in Luka, and his career is likely to follow Zion’s? Maybe AD actually has MORE productive career left than Luka?

What if the 2029 FRP will end up as top-10? Or top-5?

What if the Mavs win a championship THIS YEAR?

Will any GM ever be willing to trade with us again?

This was addressed by quite a few.  The Mavs are not a better team yesterday , today or in the immediate near future with AD over Luka. However even if by some fluke they win a title the next two years and Luka is out of the league after 3, this is still not a good trade.  It’s because the players winning will feel like rent a year players.  There is no connection with them at all. Even Kyrie and PJ. Luka was the glue that would give the fans that overall connect.  Imagine Mavs had won in 2011 but JeT and Dirk were missing and we had Bosh and Chalmers.  It would almost feel like you are cheering for another team.  Emotional connect takes a few years or some home grown young stud to step up and carry the team as the main cog.  This team has no young assets as part of this deal who can be that guy and our future was not addressed either. 

The main issue again as Garrett used to say: Process, Process, Process.  As a GM you open the bidding to all unless a SA had offered a Wemby or Bucks offered Giannis. Those deals you just take it and run. AD is not that type of player where you just say Yes. Not a 32 year old AD.As mentioned he is not even better than Luka right now. Nico can feel Luka might be done in 3 years.  As of now he is still one of the top 5 in the league and other GMs would give offers for that type of player.  So what Nico feels is irrelevant. For whatever reason. laziness.incompetence or collusion. a proper process was not followed. This is a historical type trade as Lowe mentioned. It just boggles the mind as to how trivially Nico went about it while punching an entire franchise base in their gut.