In a marquee December NBA regular season matchup in 2019, Luka Doncic was at the end of several rounds of trash talk coming from fans packed inside the Staples Centre (now Crypto Arena). Unfazed by the constant barking, Doncic pressed on and continued shining as his early days in the NBA continued to match the hype.
However, there was a particular trash talk that caught the attention of the Dallas Mavericks star as the sharp words were delivered in his native Slovenian language.
Doncic turned to find the great Kobe Bryant seated courtside speaking Slovenian to get under the skin of Doncic and both guys shared a hearty moment after.
Like most players of his generation, Doncic grew up idolizing Bryant and having the Black Mamba speaking his language while delivering his infamous venomous barbs was a cue to the level of respect Kobe had for Doncic.
Exactly, five years and a week later, Doncic is officially a Los Angeles Lakers player and will don the Purple and Gold like Bryant.
Aside demanding for more assets, trading superstar Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis was a brilliant move for basketball reasons for the Dallas Mavericks.
The world is still digesting the gravity of the enormous and shocking trade so much so, the San Antonio Spurs’ brilliant trade to pair De’Aaron Fox with Victor Wembanyama has largely gone unnoticed.
By pairing Davis with a point guard in Kyrie Irving, a very good center in Daniel Gafford, an athletic albeit undersized shooting guard in Quentin Grimes and small forward in Klay Thompson, the Mavericks have the perfect balance to press on with life after Doncic.
Trading a 25 year old for a 31 year old would have ideally brought more assets or younger promising players to be moved to the team trading the younger player. That is why Dallas should have vouched for a young player like Dalton Knecht and at least two second round draft picks to be included in the Doncic trade beyond a future first round pick and Max Christie.
That is the only bad spot in the trade for Dallas as the Mavericks have done away with a player they believe didn’t fit their culture (considering his reported poor approach to conditioning). On the court, Doncic’s play has made it difficult to build around due to his strong resistance to being a factor on defense and his ball dominant ways limiting the pool of players Dallas could fish from to fit next to him.
To negate the tremendous negatives of playing Doncic especially alongside a below average defensive player in Kyrie Irving, Dallas have had to find players who are fine three point shooters, athletic wing defenders and are excellent cutters to the basket; good luck finding multiple players who do all three well.
There is another key positive for Dallas in this trade that will be addressed later in this article but enough with Dallas, time to move on to the most glamorous basketball club in the world-the Los Angeles Lakers.
All the great clubs have something distinct about them and for the Lakers, it is all about winning it all with the best stars like the Magic Johnson-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar duo or winning it all with a superstar like Kobe Bryant.
In Detroit, having a gritty, hardnosed, defense-first approach has defined the Pistons title winning seasons. In the entertainment capital of the world Los Angeles, merely winning games doesn’t cut it because it has to be done with a star the city’s other stars from Hollywood can familiarize with.
As such, setting Luka Doncic as the next face of the team once LeBron James retires, fits the culture of the Lakers no matter how clunky its starting unit will look.
Doncic, as great a player that he is, is some ways off being the biggest three point shooting threat and lining him next to a ball dominant poor deep shooter like LeBron James, should make spacing a difficult thing to pull off.
No matter how difficult it is to envisage the Lakers beating a top team in a shootout given the spacing issues highlighted earlier, the Lakers have their man and have clarity; Luka Doncic is the future.
On the bit of clarity, Dallas have theirs and that is to build another title contender without Kyrie Irving since it missed out on recreating another Dirk Nowitkzi type of title run via Luka Doncic’s undisciplined ways.
The Mavericks’ latest attempt to win a second NBA title might feature Anthony Davis or not depending on how the new pieces develop. However, having the guts to trade a 25 year old superstar and face of the franchise means nobody is untouchable and that means Kyrie Irving is sure to be moved.
For starters, Kyrie’s availability is still questionable and looking at his history of queer behaviour that borders many times on unprofessionalism in the past plus his defensive weakness as a player, Irving definitely falls short on the standards at Dallas.
Money also played a major role behind Doncic’s trade as the Mavericks didn’t want to commit close to $400 million to Doncic on his next deal while being a bad fit for the team’s culture.
While 32 year old Kyrie’s contract pays him a competitive $42 million this season and $43 million next season albeit via a player option, his contract situation and still top tier play makes him a huge candidate to get traded for a younger player.
Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland is a player to look out for in this kind of trade as the rising star could become a top tier point guard as the lead man for Dallas in a trade for Kyrie.
It does sound crazy that the Cavaliers would let Garland go but after committing to Donovan Mitchell with a very lucrative contract and another lucrative deal in the wing for Evan Mobley, it is tough to see Garland, Mitchell and Mobley all having max contracts on the same team in the near future.
Set to earn at least $40 million a year for the next three seasons, Garland could form an immediate partnership with Davis (who has two more years left on his deal plus a player option deal) in Dallas while younger players like Grimes, Lively and Jaden Hardy develop along the way.
Kyrie won Cleveland’s only NBA title playing with LeBron James and a reunion for another title run and the advantage of having his expiring contract that could go off the books in no time makes it hard for Cleveland to pass up.
The Dallas Mavericks have clarity after trading Luka Doncic and its future is very likely to have Darius Garland, Likely, Grimes and Jaden Hardy at the helm.
Between this quartet, the Mavericks have a throwback point guard who looks to pass first than score unlike Doncic or Kyrie plus quick twitchy athletic players in Hardy, Grimes and Likely who bring a defensive touch to their respective positions falls in line with the way Mavericks head coach wants his team to play.
In a rare win-win situation, Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Lakers walked away with a bright future but Dallas’ remaining big star’s future is from clear.
