Thunder own Mavs 2028 pick and Rockets own their 2029 swap rights. They must be feeling happy now.
NBA 2024-2025 ; Lakers Land Luka
- Thread starter Desert Eagle
- Start date
Dane Moore is a rock solid beat reporter for the Wolves and in his podcast he said that he asked NBA people about why Dallas didn't talk to other teams and the answer was "Nico likes AD". 
Who is gonna pass them the ball inside. They lost their best passer. And how they will defend 3 points. Also Lively is out for the season and funnily it's been rumored that they want to sell him also.
They will be lucky to get to playoffs for 2 seasons and then they will disappear because core will get old and they have no picks for rebuild. Also good luck getting any other free agent player without Luka. They got cocky because they had Luka and players wanted to join them and in their ignorance got blinded that players want to play for Dallas not realizing players want to play with Luka.
They lost their best passer but Kyrie is a good initiator.
People forget how Kyrie played when he was the main initiator between years since he left to Cleveland till he got to Dallas. Media actually graded Dallas D for getting him. He is fantastic player but he shines as a second best player and not main facilitator.
If I’m LeBron I’m extending for 3 more years now. You’ve got a top 5 player in his prime, let the GM build a team and you’ll be one of the top 3-4 teams competing for the title.
For me the football equivalent is if Barca sold 2016 Neymar for 2025 Van Dijk and 5 million.
Two great players, but one is greater and entering his prime, whilst the other is exiting it.
For me the football equivalent is if Barca sold 2016 Neymar for 2025 Van Dijk and 5 million.
Two great players, but one is greater and entering his prime, whilst the other is exiting it.
Let's be clear about something, Kyrie is a good initiator, he is a good primary initiator but a better secondary initiator, we don't have to pretend otherwise. Yes, he is far worse than Doncic but in the NBA he is among the good ones.
Also do a Tom Brady - sign for a fraction of your market value. Free up loads of cap to build the best possible roster for the end game.
I always liked Duncan for doing this. Sadly doubt Lebron will go this route but if he does he will get a lot of respect for it.
It just makes so much sense. He is in LA, he has his son on the roster. And he for the first ever time has a teammate who is capable of being the best player on a championship team.
In the regular season, Luka needs to be the guy bringing the ball up the court, to save the stress on LBJs body, and then in the post season you’ve got two of the greatest creators the game has ever seen.
As always with LeBrons teams though, they tend to have below average role players in comparison to the other contenders.
But this time they have Reaves, Rui, Knecht, DFS, Kleber and Vincent. If they can find a way to get a big and another premiered defender, then they can become the biggest threat in the West, alongside OKC.
Luka could have gotten a $345 million 5 year super max from the Mavs for his next contract.
Now the Lakers can’t pay more than $219 million for 5 years. That’s a lot of savings.
Now the Lakers can’t pay more than $219 million for 5 years. That’s a lot of savings.
It’s $219m over 4 years. He will probably sign for 3 and then use his 10-year eligibility to sing a supermax. He will make up the difference.
Was thinking about this as well. The only "risk" of doing that is that he'll decline drastically and tarnish his legacy a bit, would be way nicer for his image if he went out after this year still dropping triple doubles at MSG and scoring/assisting at a very good pace. Of course that didn't really hurt MJ's legacy either when he came back with the Wizards, so what does he have to lose... Would set a few new records, make his own records even more unbeatable, and might even add another ring to match the likes of Kobe and Duncan.
I reckon it can be great for his legacy. Sign for antoher two or three years for a veterans minimum (or at least a much smaller contract), allowing a great roster to be built around Luka, and fully embrace the role as a semi-official playing GM. Give the team a great chance at a couple of rings at the cost of his own salary.
He can surely be highly useful and dominant when needed for a few more years, especially if he can take the back seat and rest for a lot more than he does now. A fully rested LeBron coming of a 20min/45game season can be a massive asset in the playoffs even at 43 I believe.
He'll never do it though. His ego is to big to not demand a max contract.
Yeah would purely be an ego thing if he doesn't, the guy is a fecking billionaire by now
It's not just his ego. He realizes how much money he brings to the team and the league and how underpaid he's been all these years. I don't blame any of these players for taking the most cash because at the end of the day your kids and grandkids are going to live off the money not the rings.
Sure - but one thing doesn't rule out the other. I don't blame him for anything - he has the right to demand as much money as anyone is willing to pay.
But it comes at a cost - and that cost, especially at his age, is a vastly inferior team to what he could potentially contribute to building.
He's a billionaire, and probably will be a multi-multi billionaire when all is said and done. It's not at all comparable to a year 8 great chasing a max contract. His great great great great grandchildren will live comfortably off of his fortune.
It is entirely up to him whether money or winning matters the most at this stage. He will be lauded if he decided to leave money on the table to chase rings instead. If he asks for another max contract, my opinion is that it is because of his ego.
(This is before we even get into the fact that he can help Bronny win a ring as well)
That would be true for your average player who's in the league a few years and needs to maximize earnings.
LeBron is a billionaire who will continue to make an absurd amount of money based on various investments, a lifetime sponsorship, and probably media apperances as well. Taking $75m over three years instead of $180 (don't know the exact amount) wouldn't be life-changing for him nor his kids. Like you I won't fault him if he doesn't agree to a pay cut at all, but it's not about the money anymore for him.
I don’t blame the players either. But please stop with the talk about their kids and so on. They’ve been set for the future about ten years ago. Let’s not pretend that a few millions do matter there.
Still can't believe what the Mavs did. Literally spat on their entire fanbase.
Unprecedented to be honest.
Unprecedented to be honest.
DWade thinks this thing stinks of collusion too.
Dallas is a top 5 market in the league. The NBA has had their top two European players before Luka arrived in a medium-sized market in Denver and one of the smallest markets around in Milwaukee.
Dirk played his entire career for the Mavs. Why do people always have to believe in some kind of bigger conspiracy behind the scenes rather than just a guy fecking up in a job he isn't competent for?
I think because incompetence doesn’t even begin explain this level of feck up.
How do the fans react? Or they just know it's the part of the deal when your team is owned by billionaires?
You’re forgetting he took less than the max to go to Miami, to accommodate signing Bosh.
Not that he played for peanuts, still, it’s a possibility.
If you consider Boston (last year, against him in the Finals as well) and Oklahoma & Cleveland (this year) as the current mainstream of the game (no-roles for spacing, shooting threes, defense), Doncic is pretty far away from being the finished article for a top level contender right now, plus James is 40yo. They can aggregate a number of minimum wage veterans for a run this year and have a benchmark for their future… yet, Doncic really needs to look in the mirror and grow up as an athlete to become the factor he is expected to be in the next 5-10 years.
Ps. Irving is an idiot, he can’t lead himself properly, let alone a franchise (yes, I’m still bitter for his fail in Boston).
Ps. Irving is an idiot, he can’t lead himself properly, let alone a franchise (yes, I’m still bitter for his fail in Boston).
Strongly disagree with that, not sure how he's "pretty far away from being the finished article for a top level contender" while he literally got his team to the Finals last season.
You mention OKC yet he beat them (largely the same team) handily in a 7-game series half a year ago while leading the series in points, rebounds and assists.
It does.
Many say they would rather have 10 years journey with Luka and not win then have it this way.
I didn't know - and I'm surprised. I stand corrected, then. He's shown he's willing to sacrifice money for winning before, he might as well do it again.
(I really hope he doesn't though.)
Because nobody is that dumb and even if he was that dumb, he could trade Luka to any other organization for something even more dumb, i mean he is incompetent right, what he knows but no, he created a direct trade tunnel with his buddy to Lakers on a hush hush. Players didnt know, why, why the secrecy, it wouldnt matter if defense wins rings, Luka was gone either way and if Luka knew, Lakers could ask Luka if he gonna extend with them or not before trade it self like how usually things go.
There is a reason why they kept it under the wraps, guess he was smart enough to know how one sided that trade is, he knew what media reaction would be and specially reaction of the fans, people would be up in arms and apply pressure if that package was leaked 1 or 2 weeks ago. Props to the guy, for someone who has such connections to Pelinka and Lakers, as member of extended Lakers family by Windy claims, he did hell of a job 10/10.
Traded this for AD and lols without being curious of how other offers would look, yea...nobody is that incompetent.
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If the reports are true that he really likes AD and that's the piece he wanted, what use did he have to call other teams?
Also there are multiple very credible sources that indicate quite a few people within the Mavs organization were fed up with Luka (e.g. wanting to bring in his own personal trainers and nutritionists). Guys like Brian Windhorst even came out and said that NOBODY from the Mavs said a thing about his heavy criticism of Luka in last year's Finals. In every other organization, after doing what he did, people would come out and confront him about it. Not a word from the Mavs, at all.
Who in their right mind would genuinely, infamously engrave his name in NBA history for being the guy responsible for the worst trade ever? It's just much more likely that he really thought he was doing a good job and actually thinks that AD makes them a better contender (which is a valid claim short-term). I just have a hard time to take people seriously when they scream "inside job" when they find it hard to believe something, without being in on that thing or having any knowledge about what actually transpired behind the scenes. If you look at what the most credible sources are saying and link some things together, it's still a very bad trade but at least it can be perfectly explained without looking at it like a conspiracy to give the Lakers a jump start or get the European lad to the LA market.
Not saying this is you by the way, at all, but some of the things you read on Twitter makes you (or me, at least) go "hard to believe that you even believe that yourself".
The "top 5 market in the league" part is why I believe the moving-to-Vegas rumors is BS.
Still believe there is more to this than incompetence, though.
The alternative would be that the Lakers planted him in the Mavs GM job four years ago and bided their time since then, or what am I missing here that's more credible than that?
Also if it was genuinely collusion, why would he come out and admit that he ONLY approached the Lakers? Might've come out eventually, sure, but if they were in on it together I could think of a few better constructed explanations (or excuses) then "I called to offer them Luka and that was that".
He might've been promised a top exec job at whatever company in the future, he might have some promises of something from the league, the owners in Dallas might've whispered things in his ear because they've been promised something from someone, or he might just have been masterfully manipulated by his friend Pelinka (in which case he should knock on Pelinka's door with a baseball bat, considering Pelinka had made him the official idiot of the NBA)
I'm not saying it's definitely collusion, but there are way more credible possibilities than "being planted 4 years ago".
Not understanding that Luka is worth a lot more than AD and a 1st is hard to believe. That he didn't even get two 1sts.
Simply unbelievable. And even if it is in fact true and that we know everything there is to know about all this - it is still just as unbelievable.
I could see how the bolded ones might be true. But there is currently zero evidence of that besides "this trade is batshit crazy", so it annoys me how 100% conviced people are of the collusion/conspiracy part, especially since more reasonable explanations are also not out of the question.
The outrage would also be not nearly as high if it wasn't the Lakers on the receiving end of it.
The disrespect for AD in this thread is crazy, essentially treating him like some scrub, only player last year on both all nba teams, averages 25/10 and is one of the best big defenders in the league.
Not that I would ever make this trade if I was Dallas, because you don’t give up a generational talent.
Would love to of seen what other teams would of offered for him outside of picks.
Ah come on, he can like AD as much as he wants but its his job to shuffle through offers, pick AD after, dont care. One pick for that picture above, one, not even AR as part of it, i mean what are we talking about. Regardless of why, is it his conditioning or how he behaves, matters not when it comes to how everything went down.
From an outside, there are so many things that makes no sense, many weird ways on top of all history and connections when it comes to Mavs GM and Pelinka/Lakers. Also, someone who was giggling at that press conference after such trade, while Mavs fans were losing their shit, doubt he gives a shit about being engraved as w/e.
Look personally, i lean more into double agent theory because its not legless and its more fun than to just say oh this guy has 10 IQ.
Another thing, outside this reply, could Mavs offer few days ago super max? If so, wouldnt such contract increase its value due teams( or Lakers in current case) knowing that he is locked for 2+5 or w/e the number is?