Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[michaeltex]

He literally contradicts himself. He was worried about Luka’s extension being too high, yet also worried about other teams signing him. 


Makes no sense and sounds just like cope. I cannot believe he nuked the entire franchise in a single night.

Sounds like they are claiming they were under the gun to sign Luka to the supermax this summer or lose him to the highest bidder next summer.

Somehow the team lost faith in Luka leading them to the promised land. This has to go beyond the GM. Coaching staff and management had to weigh in as well.

[SleepingHero]

Sounds like they are claiming they were under the gun to sign Luka to the supermax this summer or lose him to the highest bidder next summer.

Somehow the team lost faith in Luka leading them to the promised land. This has to go beyond the GM. Coaching staff and management had to weigh in as well.

Which makes no sense given how they LITERALLY JUST WERE IN THE FINALS NOT JUST 7 MONTHS AGO!!!!


They finally fixed the holes the team needed last year and then decide to nuke it.

[hakeemfaan]

https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/maveri...-christie/

“I understand why they would be shocked, initially,” Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison told The News. “But I do believe that we positioned ourselves to win now and also win in the future.

“And that’s ultimately the goal and why we’re here. It’s one of those things where it’s my job to make the tough decisions that put our goals first and foremost.”

“We really feel like we got ahead of what was going to be a tumultuous summer, him being eligible for the supermax and also a year away from him being able to opt out of any contract,” Harrison said. “And so we really felt like we got out in front of that. We know teams, they’ve had it out there, teams have been loading up to try to sign him once that comes available.”

This reeks of the Bulls FO arrogance when they said organizations win titles. They are still searching for a generational star 25 years later.  This reeks of the Cowboys FO arrogance, when the GM said tons of coaches can win a championship.  They are still searching 30 years later 

In the NBA you win titles by being lucky to land a generational alpha. Things might not work out and you might want to move on but you call all teams. Calling one or two teams as it is coming out now is not it. You put it out to all teams and see which team blinks. When a player like Luka is out there to be had, even owners get into the mix and will pressure their GMs. Owners know the value of a generational star and the publicity he brings. Mere titles don’t do that. Spurs won 4 titles and no one else other than their fan base cared.

[SleepingHero]

I don’t even care about the wins and losses at this point. I am just going to miss Luka playing basketball for my team man. He was one of the most entertaining, talented guys I’ve ever seen. Legit one of the best players I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching.

Fuck Nico Harrison. I can’t bro

[hakeemfaan]

I don’t even care about the wins and losses at this point. I am just going to miss Luka playing basketball for my team man. He was one of the most entertaining, talented guys I’ve ever seen. Legit one of the best players I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching.

Fuck Nico Harrison. I can’t bro

People who are looking at this deal as something that will help then Mavs this year and next are missing the essence of what it means to be a fan. If Luka had come out and demanded a trade a fan’s interest for the team would have taken precedence over a player.  When the player though has not demanded a trade, is a generational alpha who is 25, and we start to hear more and more how the GM didn’t do his due diligence to play multiple teams off one another to get the best long term haul, then there is no excuse. No rationalization. The Mavs can even win a title with AD the next two years and fat hurt Luka might be out of the league in 3. It still won’t make this trade a good one.  You have to get the best long term haul when you make a move like this and that didn’t happen here 

For all those defending Nico, I will again ask the same question. Take Boston, Lakers, Heat, Utah, Knicks and put their GM in Nico’s place. Would they have made the deal Nico made yesterday?  Absolutely not. Again this is not saying that Luka was untouchable. What folks are saying is that this is historically inept GMing. I would be feeling bad even if another team’s fan base had to go through this. It happened to us man.  It happened to us.

[SleepingHero]

People who are looking at this deal as something that will help then Mavs this year and next are missing the essence of what it means to be a fan. If Luka had come out and demanded a trade a fan’s interest for the team would have taken precedence over a player.  When the player though has not demanded a trade, is a generational alpha who is 25, and we start to hear more and more how the GM didn’t do his due diligence to play multiple teams off one another to get the best long term haul, then there is no excuse. No rationalization. The Mavs can even win a title with AD the next two years and fat hurt Luka might be out of the league in 3. It still won’t make this trade a good one.  You have to get the best long term haul when you make a move like this and that didn’t happen here 

For all those defending Nico, I will again ask the same question. Take Boston, Lakers, Heat, Utah, Knicks and put their GM in Nico’s place. Would they have made the deal Nico made yesterday?  Absolutely not. Again this is not saying that Luka was untouchable. What folks are saying is that this is historically inept GMing. I would be feeling bad even if another team’s fan base had to go through this. It happened to us man.  It happened to us.

You cooked here.

100% 


I can’t believe it happened to us.

[SleepingHero]

@Coopz___
I don’t even think Satan in his prime could’ve thought of a more vile and evil act

[KillerLeft]

At least Maxi, Dorian and Luka can play together again.

After getting flooded with texts from friends and laughing in disbelief, if there is justice in the world the trade should be vetoed by the league for GM/Ownership malpractice.  That will not happen of course.  And all the blunders of the post championship Mavs by Donnie, Mark, and whoever else was given the wheel on draft night pale in comparison to this.  I'm not even the biggest Luka fan.  When you have so much God given talent, it's hard to for a lot of athletes to develop the drive and hunger it takes to get yourself in world class shape and squeeze every drop out of that God given ability.  I hated his crying and his "approach" to defense.  God knows it is hard to build a championship roster in the modern NBA when you have to constantly try to hide a player on defense.  But by all accounts the dude wanted to be here (something the Dallas Mavericks should never take for granted) and he's absolutely stunned to have been traded.  And I can almost understand trading him, but given how most trades have gone down for starts, let alone superstars, the return we received is unforgiveable.  Unless there is something really wrong with him medically, there is no reasonable explanation for taking nickels on the dollar of his value especially considering the hole we've dug in future assets to assemble a team around him.  How they didn't extract more players, picks, and swaps is just mindboggling.

Well said. 

You tell me Luka isn’t a pro, you don’t think he’s going to reach his potential and you think giving him that super max again for another 5 is a mistake? Fine, I can get there, and have had some of those thoughts, myself. 

But, you have to get a lifeline to the next era if you’re going to do this. The team’s assets are still “in the Luka era”…AND THEY DON’T HAVE LUKA. 

This looks like they literally thought they’d have a better team moving forward building around Kyrie and AD. I can’t even wrap my head around that at the moment. This might be the craziest thing I’ve ever seen!

[khaled1987]

For all those defending Nico

It is just the bargaining phase of grief.

[michaeltex]

How was there such a loss of faith that Nico would even consider trading Luka?

Even if Nico is the one getting hung in effigy, there had to be a consensus among the management/coaches/trainers that this made sense. Going to be a lot of spin put on this decision, so figuring out what actually happened may take a while.

[SleepingHero]

Well said. 

You tell me Luka isn’t a pro, you don’t think he’s going to reach his potential and you think giving him that super max again for another 5 is a mistake? Fine, I can get there, and have had some of those thoughts, myself. 

But, you have to get a lifeline to the next era if you’re going to do this. The team’s assets are still “in the Luka era”…AND THEY DON’T HAVE LUKA. 

This looks like they literally thought they’d have a better team moving forward building around Kyrie and AD. I can’t even wrap my head around that at the moment. This might be the craziest thing I’ve ever seen!

They are going to make another trade,
Probably including Lively, for some dumb player like Butler.


And it’d be the nail in the coffin for everything they’ve built. I hate this team

[hakeemfaan]

How was there such a loss of faith that Nico would even consider trading Luka?

Even if Nico is the one getting hung in effigy, there had to be a consensus among the management/coaches/trainers that this made sense. Going to be a lot of spin put on this decision, so figuring out what actually happened may take a while.

You keep focusing on that one thing. Luka has his warts and even for a generational alpha, I didn’t think of him as untouchable.  

Yes Nico might have been told by management to make a move.  At that point the best GMs first try to convince this new raw ownership why that is not a good idea.  Did he do that?   I don’t know. 

The next thing is put it out there also that all teams and owners fall over themselves trying to give you the best long term haul. That I know didn’t happen. In a league where even the smallest things are magically leaked, Luka being on the open market would have immediately got out.   Nico apparently honed in on one or two teams.   The team had already mortgaged a lot of their future assets to build around Luka.  Nico got nothing back to offset any of it. He did not get a young stud back.  M9bley, Wagner. Heck I would even take Scottie Barnes over AD.  This is not a knock on AD or on Christie.  The GM fumbled the bag real bad here.

[Mavs2021]

I´ll be using the phrase "at least your team didn´t trade Luka Doncic" going forward, whenever somebody cries about something. Let´s see whether we can establish it as a phrase in the Oxford dictionary.

[Jym]

So....this is legitimately the worst trade since the 1970s right?

[SleepingHero]

I think Nico Harrison gravely miscalculated how big of a deal it would be trading Luka. Unfortunate

[Mavs2021]

Can we still pay Luka the supermax, if he demands to be traded back in the summer.

[hakeemfaan]

Can we still pay Luka the supermax, if he demands to be traded back in the summer.

Let it go. He is gone. Let’s help each other with group therapy.  He is gone.  Just like that. One Saturday night. No forewarning. No time to prepare that he might be on the block. Just like that he is gone for a 32 year old injured guy who has to be forced to play more aggressively every time he is on the court. Well done Nico.

[SleepingHero]

Can we still pay Luka the supermax, if he demands to be traded back in the summer.

No we cannot.

[KillerLeft]

Sounds like they are claiming they were under the gun to sign Luka to the supermax this summer or lose him to the highest bidder next summer.

Somehow the team lost faith in Luka leading them to the promised land. This has to go beyond the GM. Coaching staff and management had to weigh in as well.

That’s exactly right. They had decided not to give him the supermax extension, not because they’re cheap, but for all the cap penalty/team building reasons we’ve been on and on about this year. Straight up, they decided giving him that contract was going to cripple the franchise. 

They knew that BECAUSE they weren’t going to offer him that, he would be gone soon after. 

Whether or not any of us can find the bandwidth to agree with that logic…I cannot find the angle on HOW they did it. There had to be a better trade out there than this one, if they had just looked for it. I just keep coming back to the idea that THEY think THIS makes their CURRENT team and near future BETTER. Imagine that. I can’t get there. I couldn’t defend that if I was paid to do so. Not today, anyway.

[SleepingHero]

Not paying Luka a supermax is just dumb. I don’t care. He’s the reason why supermax’s are around. Worth every penny and then some.