Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[hakeemfaan]

I'm not trying to rebut your post, just saying that I think Luka's knee injury was something he dealt with the entire playoffs. 

My own thought about the Boston series was that the Mavs as a team weren't ready for Boston. We were the up-and-coming team that ran into a team that had already paid their dues and were flat out better.

I must not have been clear.  I said Boston was a better team. All I was trying to do was counter the knee jerk reactions of some I have read, and maybe Nico felt this way as well, that the Mavs lost because Luka’s lack of conditioning and weakness on defense caught up to him, and also maybe he lost a bit of faith in Luka as a centerpiece to a title. Hence his comments that defense wins titles. 

We have seen it play out here before with a new egotistical coach and a superstar who did have issues on defense. The difference was the owner was there to stop the coach and fire him before it was too late. 

All I was trying to say is that even though it was a quick series the gap might not have been as large as many think. I would have taken my chances if we had Derek White. Even if that is a bit too much maybe swap Kyrie and Holiday.  The whole thing with defense and reading way too much into that series to me was a knee jerk reaction.  The other thing is for the first time in Luka’s tenure here, I genuinely felt we were the best team when all were healthy. Plus Lively was only going to get better. PJ was also coming into his own and Naji/Grimes gave some real depth. We could even get away with Klay looking like his former self one night and terrible the next.  Yes with AD in there this team will be very good because it was a deep team. Luka was the centerpiece though and the first time he had a team like this, we and he didn’t even get to see how far this team  could go.