Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[SleepingHero]

In fact, while it is only my opinion, I would go so far as to say he’s not very likable.

You were cooking with everything in the post before this sentence. If I had to nitpick.

I think Luka is extremely likable and has a great personality as a leader. Many former teammates have echoed this. He's a goofy dude that does not take himself seriously at all. It is one of his greatest strengths and what has allowed him to waltz into opposing arena's in a game 7 situation and end the entire game in the first 6 minutes. 

With everything you've said before, I actually agree and can understand the reasoning. I am a biased Luka fan boy and will excuse his conditioning and general lack of seriousness when it comes to the beginning of the regular season to a certain extent because he has ALWAYS produced. Even when it's ugly, he has produced. I would argue actually the last 4 years the biggest cause of why the Mavs have started slow each year has been due to injuries. Sure Luka is out of shape, but he's still giving 28/9/9 on good efficiency 9 times out of 10. But often times he's had to drag g-league starters and inconsistent lineups for the first 3 months of the season. And in the past 2 years he himself has had to sit for various reasons. Hard to win games in the NBA with those circumstances.

And during those very ugly games, where you correctly point out his incessant whining, it's a byproduct of his passion of the game. The reason why he will constantly bark at officials is because he wants to win and needs an adversary. Its the same reason why he will do this shit randomly at a little kid in the game: 



because that type of attitude leads to this stuff:




Point is. Yes that passion can often times and HAS often times played the Mavs out of the game. Its very apparent when it happens. But it has also won the Mavs a shit ton of games they had no business of winning. The 60/20/10 game against NYK comes to mind. The 43/12/17 game against LAC in the bubble. etc. etc.