Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[audiosway]

I have wondered this myself and have been thinking about the timeline.

As I recall, Luka had the calf injury bothering him last spring, I don't remember when it started, but he said he just had to play through it until he got the time off to let it heal naturally. So he limps through all four playoff series and doesn't get to quit until mid-June. By which time he's acquired other aches and pains (ribs, knee, shoulder(?)).

Then off to Slovenia and a few weeks later, despite being beaten up after playing a long NBA season, he's playing with the national team in the Olympic qualifier, but is eliminated after a few games on July 6th.

So, in theory, he had from early July until October 1st, the best part of 3 months, to rehab the calf and get it right for this season. But he wasn't in camp a week before it was announced there was another problem with his calf. He got "kicked" in practice, (smelled fishy at the time to me TBH), but it cost him the rest of pre-season and working with several new teammates.
 
So when he DID start playing, it was back to the same old, high usage, give Luka the ball and see if he can amaze us once again. But apparently the injury still wasn't healed and it blew up on him again.

I love watching him play and I'll try to watch him no matter where he lands, but I get why the MBT felt like it was better to cut bait before getting hung committing to $70MM/yr. If Giannis was not available, I'm not sure there is anybody else better and available than AD as a trade chip. Not happy with the return, but Christie's play helps and I'm thinking AD might be unstoppable when paired with Dlive, PJ, Kyrie, Klay and Max.

Sorry if this is a little jumbled. Kind of stream of thought typing...

Not jumbled. This is actually what I've been thinking.