Hoops Tonight - Lakers-Mavericks Trade Reaction: Luka Doncic joins LeBron, Anthony Davis to Dallas

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shuttling everywhere it's just a logistically very complicated process. And so we finally sit down for some dinner at Ali's here and Breck it's a pub, and the trade comes down right when we're finally about to relax, and I'm just like, you've got to be kidding me, And Paul sent me the text Messageaul's our lead producer here, and I just assumed it was a hack, right, and then Sham's the second tweet is like, yes, this is real, which is like exactly what you would say if you

hacked Sham's account, right, So I'm like, Okay, this is definitely fake. And then all of a sudden, I start getting a couple more text messages. I see a couple other reports, and it's like, oh my god, this is actually happening, And I couldn't think straight the rest of the night. It was funny. I was watching I'm in this like kind of chaotic bar, and I'm seeing Brian Winhorse's face. I can't hear his voice, but I see him up there working and I'm like, what do you

even say right now? Like I needed time to process this. It's so funny. Even if I wasn't completely exhausted and out of position to work last night. I still probably would have waited for this morning because I just needed time to process this, get more information before I could really give any sort of strong opinion about what happened. And it still is quite possibly the craziest thing that I've ever seen in my time as a sports fan.

For the Dallas Mavericks, less than eight months away from them being in the NBA Finals, three wins away from hoisting the trophy, Trading a consensus top three NBA player to the Los Angeles Lakers, I just I can't believe it. I still am barely wrapping my brain around this, but I have some thoughts about both teams. I want to kind of get into it from a bunch of different angles. I want to start with the idea of MAVs bailing

on Luca. According to all the reporting I've seen, the company line here is that the MAVs were concerned about Luca's inability to stay in shape and they did not want to commit super max money to him. Now, upfront, I have shared many of the same concerns on this show. I thought his defensive performance in the NBA Finals last year was the most embarrassing defensive performance I've ever seen from a star in a playoff series. I talked all summer about how Luca is trending in the wrong direction

in terms of taking care of his body. He needs to get that right. I do stand by all of those things, but it still makes absolutely no sense for the MAVs, regardless of those factors. And here's why. So your alternative to building around this guy that you don't think has the ability to stay in shape and keep his body in position to give you his best every night, so you build your future around Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis,

two guys that aren't exactly the hallmark of availability. Now, Anthony Davis is a lot more available than his reputation would lead you to believe, but he does miss time and he's kind of an inconsistent motor player, which is something we'll get into in a little bit. And then Kyrie Irving hasn't played in more than sixty games in a season since twenty nineteen, so I don't see if that was the thing. I need a more reliable, more

dependable franchise cornerstone. This direction doesn't make any sense. And as for Luca, regardless of his issues with conditioning, regardless of his physical health. He is twenty five years old. He's twenty five years old, and he just led his team to within three wins of an NBA championship eight months ago. So like, regardless of your concerns, it's just

way too soon to give up on him. I don't know about you, guys, but I wasn't exactly a super mature and disciplined person when I was twenty five years old. None of us are. It's totally normal for people to take a little bit of time before they learn how to better take care of themselves, how to better reach their potential. Is this somewhat of an extreme case, sure, but it's not as bad as some other cases. There are worst cases like Zion Williamson, like joe El Embiid,

and those teams are still hanging on to hope. And aside from that, even a fat, out of shape Luca is a bona fide top five player in the NBA and you just gave him to the Lakers. I do not get it. All this really accomplishes for Dallas is it creates a really interesting, imposing defense that is a

threat to upset some teams in the West. But does not have the offensive ceiling to win the title, to win four playoff rounds, and you just shortened your window because instead of being built around a twenty five year old, top tier superstar, you're built around older, more fragile maybe not more fragile than Luca, but more fragile compared to other franchise cornerstones, guys that have a much shorter window here for you to capitalize them. Anthony Davis turns thirty

two in March, and he's an old thirty two. He doesn't move nearly as well as he did when he joined the Lakers. Just go watch highlights of Anthony Davis in the bubble when they won the title. I'm a huge believer in Anthony Davis's talent, and we'll get further into that here in a minute, but I don't view him as a long term solution as a foundational superstar.

As a matter of fact, I've talked on my show about how if the like I thought, the Lakers after Lebron retired, should trade Anthony Davis because he's not the kind of guy you should build around at that point in his career, in his mid thirty so you get rid of your championship upside and you shorten your window to content. I just don't understand it, and frankly, I think there's no case for it, and I think MAVs fans have every right to be very upset about this.

I legit feel terrible for MAVs fans. I am sorry, guys, this is absolutely crazy. I can't even imagine what you guys are thinking. On that note, I want to take some time to go through what this means for both teams. Let's start with the Lakers. So they did pay a pretty penny in this deal, not enough really for Luca Donschitz, but they did give up a lot. They lost one of their two first round picks that they have tradable

this year. And they lost Max Christie, who just played a great game last night against the Knicks, and MAVs fans like he is a I think he projects to be a high level two way starter in the long run. I think he's a few years away from being super rock solid as a playoff player, but I think he's a high level two way role player. You guys are going to like Max Christy. Lakers give up Max Christy. He just had a great game against the Knicks last night.

That the funniest thing about all of this. I was watching the Knicks game as we were driving from Denver into the Breckenridgeeria last night, and I was literally thinking to myself, like, this team is becoming fun for me to watch again. It had become a miserable team for me to watch earlier in the year. And here, right when they're starting to play some of their best basketball, right when I'm really starting to enjoy watching them, they

blow it all up. It's just super bizarre. But like, let's be clear, they did give up a lot, giving up Anthony Davis, giving up Max Christy, giving up a first round pick, even if we all agree that that shouldn't be enough for Luka Dunggich. My first thought last night was, if you follow a path of rational thought through to conclusion, you should trade Lebron now. Right he's

forty years old. You need to keep Luca happy in LA by surrounding him with talent, and Lebron might be the best short term solution, but he's not the best long term solution because of his age, and when he retires or when he ages to the point of decline, he has no trade value at that point. But there were two things that made me think a Lebron trade would never happen. One, Rob and Jeanie are just much

more Hollywood than they are competent. And I'm sure they're just giddy about the idea of partnering Lebron James with Luka Doncic. I'm sure they'd love to just tell everybody about that, So, like, I have a feeling they'll keep him. And then two, Lebron is forty. He probably doesn't want to move across the country. He does have retirement leverage.

If Lebron decided he wanted to stay with the Lakers, him and Rich could just call the other twenty nine teams and be like, hey, if you trade for Lebron, he's going to retire. I think Lebron has enough leverage to stop that from happening. So I just had a hard time believing that was the direction that they go next. And then we ended up getting a report from Chris Haynes today that Lebron wants to stay with the Lakers. So, as far as I'm concerned, Lebron's staying with the Lakers

unless some sort of magical trade materializes. That Lebron would actually want and would benefit the Lakers, but I view that as very very unloe. So we can move forward with Lebron staying. That leaves the roster as Luka, Doncic, Lebron James, Austin Reeves, Ruey, Hachi Mura, Dorian Finney Smith, Gabe Vincent, Jared Vanderbilt, Maxi Kleiba who came back in the deal, Dalton Connect, Cam Retis, Jackson, Hayesen, some end of the bench guys. A bunch of things fundamentally change

about the team. One, you suddenly go from a very weak shot creation team relative to the top teams to possibly the best shot creation team in the league. You're not doing better in half court initiation than Luka, Doncic, Lebron, James, and Austin Reeves anywhere in this league. But there are other problems, right, I would say another upside is that you're super deep at forward.

physical limitations. Austin's a little skinny and not overly athletic, and Gabe is short right. Not to be clear, Jared Vanderbilt can be deployed as a perimeter defensive guard. Cam Reddish can, but he shouldn't really be in an NBA rotation. I view him as like a break glass in case of emergency guy, like an end of the bench guy. So they could definitely use a piece in terms of a guard who can defend on the perimeter. And now

you're god awful at center. Jackson Hayes, in my opinion, isn't even good enough to be a backup center on a serious team. Christian Wood is more of a power forward to me, and he's always hurt. I think Maxi Kleba is fine as a backup center or small ball center, but he can't be your starting center, so that has to be addressed. And I'm just a tiny bit worried about off ball play finishing because assuming they use Ruey in a trade for a center, they don't have much

in the way of spot up shooting. Beyond the stars. You have Dorian Finney Smith, you have Gabe Vincent, who's streaky, and you have Dalton who probably can't be in a playoff rotation because of his defensive shortcomings right now. So you have a dire need at the center spot. You really need a guard that can defend on the perimeter and just guys that can in those two spots finish plays on the offensive end as Lebron, as Luca as Austin create advantages. So I would be looking around at

guys like Robert Williams. I would be seriously considering trying to facilitate that Miles Turner deal from the Pacers that's been kind of floating around in the ether, and like, it's one of those things where it's difficult to find something that addresses all of the flaws. So more likely than not, it's gonna be one of those things where Rob does the best he can, but we still are looking at some flaws on this Lakers roster. When it's

all done. I tried to find a deal that makes some and here's just one example that I came up with. What if you call the Pacers and the Bulls, and the Pacers we know are looking for a center that doesn't want a long term deal like Miles Turner, right, they want just like a different center option that's cheaper. I like the idea of you calling up the Pacers and Bulls and you offer Austin Reeves and Dalton connect to the Pacers. In return, you get Miles Turner and

Aaron Nesmith from the Pacers. So you get a starting center who is an excellent play finisher, a guy who can run, pick and pop, a guy who can finish on the roll, a guy that will help them on the offensive end finishing those advantages. And Aaron Nismith, by the way, is a guy who can really defend on the perimetery, can knock down, catch and shoot shots. That kind of solves those two roles, and both guys can be play finishers. You give up Boston Reeves, so now

all of a sudden you need a ball handler. But that's where you could look at the buy out market, Like let's say San Antonio does pull off a deer in fox trade. That's where a Chris Paul trade or excuse me, Chris Paul could get bought out, and then you could be looking at Chris Paul as your backup point guard that you sign at the veteran minimum pro rated for the end of the season as your backup

point guard right now. In order to make all this deal work, you'd have to send a center to Indiana, so you'd call up the Bulls and you'd have the Bulls send Nikola Vusovich to the Pacers. Nikola Vusovich has two years left on his deal right around twenty million dollars. He is older, so he's much more likely to take a discount after this deal, and he's a legitimate pick and pop big that will maintain the integrity of Indiana's

offense as they move forward with their goals. The Bulls, in order for this to work, would get Ruy Hachimura from the Lakers, and they get Ben Matherin from the Pacers, so every team kind of gets to shuffle the deck a little bit. The Bulls would get Ruy Hachimura and a guy in Ben Matherin who's twenty two years old, and who keeps getting better. He's at fifty eight percent for shooting this year. Ben's on the You get a talented young player if you're Chicago. If you're Indiana, you

get Austin Reeves. That's a really good player to bring in at a discounted contract. Now, in order to make the deal work, you'd either have to include a minimum contract with a draft pick, probably that first round pick, or you'd have to include Dalton Connect in the deal and you just leave that up to Indiana. Would you rather have the first round pick? Would you rather have Dalton Connect? You can figure that out. If you didn't send Dalton, you'd send someone like a Christian Wood to

facilitate that deal. Right, So the Bulls would get Ruytcha Mura and Ben Mathn, the Pacers would get Austin Reeves, either Christian Wood or Dalton Connect, and they get Nikola Vusovich from the Bulls, and then the Lakers would get a guy like Miles Turner and an aaron Ne Smith. That's just an example of a trade. To be clear, it's extremely unlikely. It's a long shot. I think it's more likely that the Lakers end up having to patch one of those holes. If you have to patch one,

you patch the center hole. If you have any opportunity to get a guy like Robert Williams, if you can't make some sort of larger deal, you've got to take that Robert Williams opportunity because then it's like you can at least patch things up with what you've got in house. Okay, we might have to use Jared Vanderbilt as a perimeter defender more often. Right, we're gonna have to stagger things so that we keep shooting on the floor as much

as possible. Right, there's a bunch of different things that get complicated in that process. But if you're gonna patch a hole, you gotta patch that center hole as best as you can. And then if you can get a guard that can shoot and defend on the perimeter, that is the best way to go about trying to maximize this roster in the short term, regardless of what happens. The Lakers had to do this again. It's hilarious because

they were starting to play well. But if the Dallas Mavericks call you up and they offer to give you Luka Doncic, you have to take that offer and just figure out the rest later, even if you end up losing this season in the process, and the last thing I'll say about it on the Lakers front as a fan, I'm really curious to see what it's like rooting for Luca. I have had the same concerns with Luca that Nico

Harrison has had. I've been very critical of Luca. I'm interested to see what it's like rooting for him and getting to know his game on an even more intimate level. In that way, I'm hoping that he takes this embarrassment from the franchise that drafted him dumping him. I'm hoping he takes that as a wake up call and goes out for revenge this year. That would be the most fun outcome. That's what I'm hoping to see from.

just a monster. Don't let anybody tell you differently. He's the best defender in the world when he wants to be, in my opinion. And he's a very useful offensive player. There are certain types of guys that he can absolutely fry in one on one situations. Look at that forty point game he had the other night. And then if in ball screens, if teams leave him open in the pocket, he can destroy teams just as like a vertical spacer. He's got a great floater in the lane. Like He's

just a really useful offensive player there. He's great at drawing fouls there. He's got a lot of upside there on the offensive end. But there are two things that lead to his inconsistency. The reputation Anthony Davis has of being inconsistent comes from these two things. On offense, he's a bit matchup dependent. There are certain types of front court players who are both big enough to not be overpowered by ad but quick enough to prevent him from

getting around him. In those situations, ad has to shoot shots over the top, like hooks, step back jump shots, things along those lines, and he's inconsistent as an over the top score. Some nights you'll catch him and he looks like Kevin Durant. Other nights he can't make anything. The other thing on offense is he does struggle to handle double teams in the post. That's something that just never really came together for him as an offensive player.

And then on defense, he's always just been a very weird motor player. Like when he's going, he's just absolutely devastating, even on the Knights when he doesn't have it on offense and he only has seventeen like I've seen games with Anthony Davis where he has seventeen points, fifteen rebounds and he completely dominates the game. The offense is just like, when it's there, he looks like the best player in the world. When it's not, it's matchup dependent. It is

what it is. But when he's going on defense he's devastating. But he will have many nights where it just kind of looks like he's going through the motions. All Laker fans will tell you this, which is why it's hilarious. Of all the guys that Nico Harrison wanted to bail on Luca for that, this is the guy they that

they chose. But to be perfectly clear, I think Anthony Davis at his best is a clear top ten guy in the league, and he makes for a very interesting MAVs roster, even though I don't think they have the same Even though though I don't think they have the same offensive ceiling they had with Luca, it's a very interesting team with a really interesting defensive set of personnel. They have the potential to be pretty frightening on defense. I've talked a lot about the too big dynamic with

the Lakers. One of the things that's happened in recent NBA history is teams have gotten really good at bringing their ball screen defender up to the level of the screen to do a better job of containing ball handlers and putting the onus on the playmaker to be able to make that skip pass to the corner or to thread the needle to the role man in the middle of the lane. But teams are bringing the lowman over

and they're tagging that guy. It's just a really difficult job to come over into the lane and tagger roller, but also have the athleticism and ground coverage to get back out to the corner. The two big look what makes it appealing is you put Anthony Davis instead of as the ball screen defender. You put him at the

four on the back line. So now you can imagine a scenario with Derek Lively coming up to the level of the screen, but Anthony Davis is the guy that's running that bracket, splitting the difference between the role man going downhill and that skip pass to the corner. I couldn't even imagine a better option for Ady to work with in that sort of context as a role player than a guy like Derek Lively. Both guys can switch

when they need to. They should have a devastating defensive connection between those two guys, and they won't be a slouch offensively because of the work that Nico did this summer to bring in extra ball handling, something I've talked about a Ton bringing in Spencer Dinwoodie, bringing in Naji Marshall. Even they're off ball guys, guys like Quinton Grimes, guys like Klay Thompson that could run action coming off of screens. They are a lot deeper in their ball handling than

they were in years past. And as we know, Kyrie Irving is a damn good basketball player who specifically thrives in tight spaces. That's the kind of upside that I see in terms of the ad Kyrie fit. In order to thrive in these tight space situations, you have to be an excellent pull up jump shooter, and Kyrie is

the front court Spacing won't be pretty. It will be hard to get to the rim with this group, which is why a guy like Kyrie becomes more valuable and is over the top shooting, and they will have a ton of stops with their defense that buys them margin for error on offense. I think they need to be hunting ball handling before this Thursday. The trade that I found that I really liked this morning was from the Utah Jets. I'd call them up and I'd offer Daniel

Gafford and Nauji Marshall for Colin Sexton. I believe they have too tradeable first after this deal. If I'm reading the tea leaves properly, and they could probably get this done for a lightly protected first. Colin's playing really well. He's everaging twenty two points and six assists per game on forty eight percent from the field, forty one percent from three to eighty nine percent from the foul line. In this recent chunk of games, it's like fifteen games

or so that he's been playing at this level. So I think he would be a little bit expensive, But I think he's gettable, and he addresses a very specific need in terms of shot creation on this team that can really guard. I think that type of team has real upset potential in the Western Conference. Their defense will

overwhelm certain teams. They would give major problems to a team like Minnesota, for instance, when they can pack the paint, they'd be dangerous versus like an Oklahoma City, a team that has struggled against teams that have packed the paint before when their shooters go cold. But I don't think that Dallas offense is capable of reaching the level necessary to win four playoff rounds, and that ultimately is what makes this trade so absurd. It doesn't feel like there's

a championship ceiling anymore with that team. I've talked a lot about this MAVs roster this year. I was really excited about what this team would look like post deadline. Luca comes back, they make a run at it because they have so many useful, talented role players anchoring two of the best advantage creators in the league, and Luca and Kyrie. I wanted to see it, and that's why I mean, it's gonna be fun. I'm excited to watch

the new look MAVs. I would encourage you guys to give Anthony Davis a fair shake on the nights when he's got it. You will love that guy. But I just don't understand why they did it. I totally get why MAVs fans are super upset. I would be two. I feel bad for you guys. I'm genuinely sorry that this is happening. We're gonna cover it every step of the way. I'm gonna try to take a take a break now and decompress a little bit before I get back in town on Wednesday. If something else goes down,

I got my stuff. I'll make sure that I'm here and we will cover these things in detail on Wednesday and Thursday surrounding the trade deadline again. I sincerely appreciate you guys for rocking rocking with me and supporting the show. If anything else happens, let you guys know, just keep an eye on my Twitter feed and then if not, I will see you guys for an episode either on Wednesday or Thursday. I'll see you guys then.