Luka vs. Mavericks

Ah Yes.

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Listeners, here comes KT fun tweets.

Were the round the spirits.

Now let's come around the sports KT fun tweets as all the sports yea.

And the words of a wise man, did you catch your game?

Wive's right, man, there's so much about this that I want to talk about. The thing that stood out to me for it even started was MAVs GM Nico Harrison down on the court and Luca's warming up on one side. He's on the other side, and I thought, man, that is fascinating, And I just didn't know if that was normal, if that was aggressive, if he's just like so in on his conviction to make the trade that he's just telling the world. Yeah, man, I did this trade. I

I guess I.

Wasn't expecting it either, under the circumstances. I think you, if you wanted to call it aggressive or whatever, it's not in any way abnormal. Right, The vast majority of the time I've ever talked to Nico has been at that time of a game, because it's what happens is is front office people are out there usually, like the

Did that catch anybody else as being odd? Your Chris?

I mean, I thought all of it was odd, just the entire night in general. Like I saw Luca was doing some push ups in the pregame, thought that was interesting.

That happens every previo. He does that all the time.

Okay, he shoots, he shoots, so he does it here and I'm sure he's found guys out there. They do a shooting contest and if he makes the shot, they do the push ups. If he misses, he does the push ups.

The thing that you're watching for a couple things, you're just watching for a is he about to in the first five minutes of the game jack every shot? And he kind of was, but it wasn't overt because the Mavericks were paying a lot of attention to him, and then you're waiting on him too. I was hoping the broadcast would have done a better job of pointing out

An awesome picture where it looks like they're staring at each other.

Is that real?

I don't.

I mean, that was online so fast. I was like, this has to be photoshop, this has to.

Be there's another one of Luca's standing right next to Ja Kid, and somebody took that. Have you ever seen the picture of the two dogs at the intersection where one dog is in the car next to you and he's looking at you. So he's looking at one dog so aggressively, going yeah, what what and the other dog in the car closest to the cameras going I don't.

I'm just looking straight ahead. I don't see anything. I'm not turning to the right. I'm not turning the right. Look over here, look over here, not looking over there. I'm looking straight ahead and looking straight ahead.

I had never seen that picture you're referencing until last night.

When I saw it, I died laughing. It is so funny.

It was, you know, there was so much stuff surrounding the game, beyond the game, so much emotion. He ends up having a triple double in a great game and Lakers win, But it wasn't a fifty burger like I was thinking or anything. And yeah, obviously there's a lot of emotion for him. He's he wasn't just out there on full spite mode. You know, you know what he what he did.

In hindsight, I guess if I had spent a little more time thinking through it, what he did is he did exactly what he was supposed to do. Because the Los Angeles Lakers have been crushing people for weeks and it happened before Luca ever showed up.

They've been on a tear.

And I know, you guys think I'm doing a bit on Austin Reeves.

Austin Reeves is great.

That hurt more than Luca making shots as Austin Reeves making show.

He killed us, and he's been doing that all season long. And so I right now, all Luca's got to do is just come in and try to fit in.

And it's very difficult.

Think about what Kyrie did when Kyrie got here, and it's very difficult to fit in with something when you're a dominant player and the team you're coming to is playing incredibly well.

And they didn't have to gut their team to get you.

Yeah, I mean, I mean they didn't have to give up everybody to get him.

And so they So anyways, he's got to figure out how to be Luca, and I think like it's huge for him that Lebron. I think the reason we were talking about this earlier. I think the reason Lebron walked off the court in the fashion that he did is I think he was letting the NBA know, bro, this is my team right now and we're playing badass because of me, and everybody needs to recognize that. And so I'm not going to stand around out here. I'm going to head to the locker room. And He's saying and

I think when I was watching, Oh, there's there's a million different things here. At the end, I loved every MAVs player dap up Luca and like excited to go see him.

So you know, like how the players feel about things.

Coaches too, every single Yeah, I mean there was coaches too, exactly. So I mean that was like that was the part that I hurt the most for me, is saying just a little thing like Jayden Hardy going over and just giving him a big hug is like.

Or the Kyrie handshake before started again. I almost couldn't watch the game from that.

The hardest thing and by the way, Laker fans chanting thank you Unko.

It's amazing he's in the building for that.

The hardest thing for me is watching Jeanie Buss or Polinka or whatever talk about how they can't believe they're so lucky to have landed one of the best players on earth, and they're like, these things just don't happen. You just how do you ever, We never in a million years imagine this was even a possibility.

Yeah, you're like, yeah, that's got we feel too. Nobody.

I mean, I mean people on opposing teams and Billy just followed the league and all that are just like, all right, okay, this is what it is.

This is what it is. Again.

I don't think Nico did it just by himself. He may have been the only one to know until the very end, but I mean, he had conversations with guys on the It's evident from all the stories that are out there that these are things that the front office had talked about, and it's not just coming from one source, it's coming from multiple, multiple writers or writing about it.

And so it's the thing.

Now, that's not the thing that's amazing about all this to me is that no one, very few people are willing to recognize the idea that several things can be true at once. It's got to be black and white, and it's got to be a civil war. And it's like, just because he had these issues, that doesn't mean it was right to trade him. Like you can hang on to guys that are problematic in some ways and hope that it gets better or formulate ways to get better. The thing I've said, I bet I've said this twenty

Three weeks? How long is it there?

Twenty two?

No one can rationalize the return, no one can make sense of that. But that's what they wanted, That's what they wanted but I saw this quote from Stein today whispers via league sources, suggesting Dallas's decision makers, most notably Nico Harrison, no longer wanted Planet Mavericks to orbit around Doncic and had grown determined to trade him by.

This summer at the latest.

So they were just done with the conditioning with his own personal training team. There's obviously a lot of talk about the hookah, smoking a hookah and all that stuff. You have Michael Finley taking a beer away from him. You know, all those things all factor into them just saying hey, and we don't want to pay him seventy million a year. We don't think his health is going to improve by if he continues with this lifestyle.

We can't reach him.

Seventy million a year is a lot of money, and then we're pot committed to that and it just subject to if he decides to take it seriously or not. So we don't want to be We don't want our world to revolve around him. I get that, I understand feeling that way. I still wish they could have fixed it. And when Luca showed up in LA and first started playing games, you're like gohly Man, he is he is out of shape, but by last night he looked like he's in significantly better shape.

I mean, he looks twenty pounds later in two weeks.

You just wish more people had see how we're going back and talking about the trade. You just wish more people had to say before it was just done and it's over because he's twenty five and like. But if they were done with it and the other the key component of all this is he wanted Anthony Davis on this team. Yeah, Niko wanted Anthony Davis on this team.

He he does not, so everyone thinks this, But the guy who made the decision doesn't think the same way everybody else does. He thinks Anthony Davis and Luka Doncic are comparable players. In his mind, those are comparable players. And the reason that he got a first round pick and got Max Christie out of it probably has to do with the age. That's I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying that's what that person thinks.

I'm curious what the owners think about just the business side of it though, too.

You know, they probably think differently about it now. Right.

But because even if he does think that, I agree he does think that the rest of the league is shocked, and so it's like he went into that negotiation. That's just the part about that doesn't sit well with me, that he had a long standing relationship with Polinka and here's Polinka now seemingly, you know, dealing from you know, not having to pay full price for what the rest of the league would have paid for that. And yeah,

Yeah. Well, I've decided to be a Wizards fan now, so have you? Yeah? Oh, they finally got rid of Kuzma.

I always liked Magic, which would make you think I would go pull for the Orlando Magic.

Ye, But no, all right, there it is little MAVs, Luca Lakers, Coming up next, it's the Today Game, the only segment of the day that will not be podcasted. It must you must listen live to hear this