Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[mvossman]

It is still really tough.  I have been trying to put my head in the sand and just focus on the current team.  It is going to be really tough though.

I think I have settled on two routes on why Nico made the trade.  This is obvoiusly a bet against Luka.  Although, I think it was one of two reasons...maybe a combo of both.

1) Nico became frustrated with Luka.  There may or may not have been known friction but Nico thought his message was not being taken seriously.    So Nico made it personal in a you or me type of scenario.    This is why another voice in the room would have been helpful.

2) Nico is proud of this team he put together and sees a 2-4 year window with the team he put together.  He has a lof pride of the his recent moves.    So while he had some doubts in Luka, he decided to make a move where he thinks improves the teams chances in the short term to be able to win with "his roster"  Although having another voice in the room here would also have been helpful.  Another strong voice should have been in the room telling Nico that if you move Luka in reality your window closes.

To add to this, for a little over a year while Linsey was here there was a clear focus on acquiring young players on reasonable deals (Lively, Omax, Williams, Exum, DJJ, PJ, Gafford, Grimes).  The second Linsey left the mindset seemed to change.  Instead of DJJ being the number one priority, it suddenly became Klay, a 34 year old primarily offensive player who had prior ties with Nico.  The argument was we needed better offense to deal with Boston.  Then just a few months later we trade our superstar for another older player with ties to Nico.  This time the argument was defense wins championships.  And of course his biggest move prior to Linsey being here was sending all of our assets for Kyrie, another older player with ties to Nico.

It feels a lot like this is all about Nico getting his guys here than any coherent plan.