Joining me right now with senior NBA writer for ESPN. He's the host of the Brian Windhorse and the Hoop Collective podcast, but more importantly, he's a friend, one of the best of the business to one and only. Brian Windhorse joins me right now, Wendy, what's going on man? Have you recovered from the shock you felt Saturday night when this news came down that Luka Doncik was being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis.
Nope, and I suspect, actually, I'll ask you, did you have any inkling this was coming at all?
Zero Oka zero, I had no idea.
Most of the time, in our business, when there's a significant deal, even if it's an insignificant deal, we have heard something about it. Some we can't always talk about it because you know, sometimes there's we gotta protect people. Sometimes we don't see all the sides of it and what have you. But normally we are at least a little bit aware in our business of certain things coming down. There was nothing on this, zero nothing. And then based on the way my phone lit up, Stephen a head
coaches players, executives, agents, players, lawyers. The workout guys. You know, the reaction that I got from all the phases of the NBA is the shock I've never seen anything like it. I do think it's truly Not only is it the fact that it's a star for a star in the middle of the season, which is extraordinarily rare, but it was a star for a star where nobody in the whole NBA universe saw it coming, which makes it a one off that I've ever seen.
It's obvious why the Los Angeles Lakers would do this deal despite the greatness of Anthony Davis. Luca is a once in a generation talent. He's box office he's got international you could say international appeal. That doesn't even begin to measure his cachet. And we know what the Laker brand is all about.
This is what they do.
They put it forth succession plans, you know, from the days of whether it's Willed, it's Kareem, it's Gasol, it's it's Shack, it's I mean, the list just goes on and on. Jerry West draft a swap for Kobe Bryant, it never stops. We understand the Lakers. What possible explanation do you have for the Dallas Mavericks electing to do this, Wendy.
I think it's a basic one. They knew that coming on July first, I guess June thirtieth, they had to give him a five year, two hundred or three hundred and fifty million dollars deal or not they didn't give it to him. It was going to all hell was going to break loose if they did give it to him. They had to believe in him for the next five years at that price, and they didn't believe in it. And that decision is the core of all of this as far as I know now, maybe there'll be new
information that'll come out. As far as I know, they basically decided they didn't want to give him that deal. And you know, there are there are certain situations where you would say, look, if you don't love a player, give him the contract at least, because then if you want to trade him, the player can't control where he goes. So a player has a year on his contract, which is what Luca would have, that he could control where
he goes. So there, you know, one school of thought would be, all right, you don't love him, give him the contract and figure it out later. But they not only made that decision. They made the decision that they wanted to do something now and to deal with it this season. I suspect I don't know, but I suspect the reason is is because Kyrie Irving is in is you know, early to mid thirties, they don't want to
do something that is going to detract from that. Not only that, Kyrie Irving could be a free agent this summer and they wouldn't want to have to do with both situations. So I do think the core of it was they didn't want to pay him the three fifty. They live in a world where they see Joel and on this humongous contract that now is becoming a potential problem for the seventy six ers. They kind of wanted to avoid that, and they said they wanted to compete
for a championship this year. And they went out there and they looked and they said, the player that we can get, they can make us win, have a chance to win this year, is Anthony Davis. And those two realities. You can say that those are mistakes, that you can say that it's a flaw and judgment, but those two realities led us to that result. When that trade came down Saturday night.
Thing that's challenging for me as I sit here and continue to cover this story along with yourself and Sean Sharania broke the story, so let's give him some love and props for that and what have you. The thing that really throws me aback is whether it's from other NBA executives, whether it's from Hollywood stars. The list goes on and on. They're like, wait a minute. The Knicks had to give away five first round picks to get Michael Bridges. They had to give away a couple of
picks to get a call Anthony Towns. Assets had to be rendered to get a Rudy Gobert. You look at some of these deals that have transpired, How in the hell can anybody justify the Dallas Mavericks telling us we're gonna give away Luca.
We know that Anthony Davis is all world.
He's twenty five and twelve in his sleep, he's one of the best big men in the game. He's an elite defensive player, but still not the having nearly the box office appeal or anything like that. Nor is he the player that Luka Doncik is.
How do you.
Justify getting getting or giving away Luka Doncik and only getting one first round pick in return.
How does Brian win to us explain that?
Yeah, So the Kevin Durant trade is a fascinating one because if you compare Durant and Anthony Davis, you look at what the Nets got, and I think right now it's up to nine first round picks, some pick swaps, because they obviously got you know, Michal Bridges, they got draft picks, and mckaal Bridges and Cam Johnson. They already swapped out Bridges, and they might even swap Cam Johnson for another first round pick or two that could go
to double digits in first round picks. And frankly, if the Mavericks wanted to, they probably could have called Brooklyn and offered them Luca, and I think they could have gotten the line's share of that stuff that's from that Durant trade. But I think the big difference here is the Mavericks wanted a player that they could win with. Now, all of those picks look incredibly impressive on paper, none
of them are helping them win this season. So I can get my mind and as I've talked to executives in the league, stephen A. It's helped me get my mind around. Okay, they came to the decision that Luca isn't going to be their guy. Okay, I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can understand it. They came to a decision that Anthony Davis was going to be their guye Okay, you don't want to open up to the whole market. I think that's possibly a mistake, but
that's your decision. I can kind of get it. The one thing I haven't reconciled is not getting everything from the Lakers for this player. And I understand where the Lakers were gonna go shame. Akers are saying, hey, listen, Luca is gonna be a free agent in a year and a half. We don't get the Supermax advantage Luca was gonna sign. I don't care what anybody says. Luca was gonna sign that three hundred and fifty million dollars deal. That was not a stressor for the Mavericks. The stressor
wasn't whether Luca would sign up. The stresser was whether the MAVs wanted to pay it. The Lakers don't have that advantage. They don't get the Supermax. What Luca can now sign with with the Lakers is the same thing he can sign with anybody else. So the Lakers now have a year and a half, but they're going to try to get it done this summer. But they they're on the clock a little bit to get Luca, to get Luca a team around him that he feels good about.
And you know, there's only so much you're gonna be able to sell him on playing with forty year old Lebron. He's got to worry about the five years. So I can see why the Lakers would say, listen, we got to hold back a draft, but we got to hold back Austin Reeves because we got to potentially still build this team around Luca in the next few months. I can understand the negotiating position. I can't understand why Dallas
didn't get it anyway. And so that's the one thing I don't understand why they left those things on the table, and God bless Rob Polinka. You can say that this fell into their lap, and that's a fair assessment, but you can't say he didn't negotiate a good deal. Whatever he did to get the Mavericks to accept the terms he did a great job making that negotiation.
With that being said, nobody has been I don't recall anybody being more critical of Luka Doncik than you over the years in terms of his conditioning, particularly doing the NBA players, especially in the finals. In a particular game against Boston, you went ballistic. You was as disgusted with
him as I've ever seen you. When when we hear that the Dallas Mavericks were fed up with Luka Doncik, put into perspective through your years of covering this league, the kind of stuff that they saw, the kind of stuff they believe he was doing Brian Wenthors that made them say, we've had enough, get the hell up out of here, and we're gonna send you to LA And oh, by the way, we're gonna cost you nine figures, about a hundred and twenty five million dollars because you did
no longer eligible for the Supermax. You got to accept the max deal from the Los Angeles Lakers, which is at about two nineteen to two twenty nine, as opposed to the three forty five that you were going to get from Dallas. What was he doing to make the Dallas Mavericks do this.
And don't forget I know, you know, taxes, the taxes, the taxes between Texas and California, that's not even computed. The reason I was so viscerally upset after Game three the finals last year was because I had seen Luca. I wasn't about his conditioning, like you know, I don't know his I'm not an expert in conditioning, clearly, But what I was upset about was that he allowed his demeanor and his focus on the game to hurt his team. And I had seen him do this several times before
in big games for his national team. I cover international basketball. I have seen him do this several times while playing for the Slovenian national team. He was he was ejected or disqualified from a game, a vital game, an elimination game, when he completely started to hurt his team by the way his demeanor was in that in that game. And so I was viscerally upset that he did it again on this highest stage. Because if you if you're down two to zero and you lose game three year eliminated.
No one's ever come back from three to zero, and they weren't going to come back from three to zero. And the fact that he played so well with so much focus in game four only made it worse. And I was frustrated that the finals were going to be over stephen A because and I felt that he was the key to making the finals, a long greade finals, and instead he was the key to making the short finals. And that's why I was upset. And you know this
better than anybody. When you say something about a player, when you are critical of a player or an organization, even if your your your founded and your facts and your opinion is right, you will often have people defend that that person or that team. You your phone blows up during commercial breaks on first take and for people
will give you instantaneous defense. When that happened last year, and I said that about Luca, I was in Dallas, coming to the arena every day for days on end, and nobody from the Mavericks organization said anything to me, even if they thought I was right and what I was pointing out. Typically you're used to getting them to defend their guy, because that's there's sometimes their job and they're progative. Nobody said anything to me, And you know, when that happened, I made a note of it in
my head. I was like, because I prepared myself. I came into the building going, Okay, here it comes, I'm gonna get a procession pr someone from the front office, some from the coaching staff. Nothing. And it's because I think that on a personal level, they had been very frustrated with him too, and then they came into this season off that great season last year, tremendous momentum. He gets hurt in training camp, probably because he wasn't in the best shape. While he's hurt, he falls way out
of shape. He comes back and is so out of sh that he has this hand or wrist injury, and they shut him down again, yes, to help the injury, but also to get him and back in the physical condition. He comes back and then he gets injured again in the same injury. So I think his health was exacerbated his conditioning this year, but I think there was a whole package that was detracting. And having said all that, I still think it's a controversial, questionable decision to pull
the ripport on a guy twenty five years old. I don't think I could have done it.
What kind of effect do you think this moved signals to players in the league and for the league overall, owners executives seem happy that the Dallas Mavericks sent this kind of message that they were willing to send away their superstar, because it says the message nobody is safe.
Yeah, maybe it is a tipping point. You eloquently talked about that on First Take today. I guess we've got to wait and see if Mark Cuban was still the owner of the team. All of these things could have been true with Luca. And I don't think Mark Cuban does it because I think he had a different view of it. And again, maybe Nico Harrison and Patrick Dumont, who's the governor of the team and you know, signed
off on this. Maybe he'll maybe they'll regret it. But it is fascinating that they're saying that all of the things that Luca brings. You know, teams either have generational superstars or they're trying to get them. That's it. Essentially, you can put teams into two different baskets. Everything else
that they do. You either got a superstar or you don't and you're dreaming of one, so they have one, and to send them away because they didn't fit exactly what you wanted is a complete going against the grain of everything we've seen for the last era in the NBA. So maybe this plows up in the Mavericks face. Maybe two years from now we see the Lakers coming to the same conclusions that the Mavericks have already come to, and the Mavericks will look good. I would still bet
on Luka Doncic. I wouldn't put my life on I wouldn't put my house on it. I still I still believe that, you know, And when I got frustrated at him last year and criticized him heavily, I really I still believe that it's part of his story. Arc I still think someday he's holding the Larry O'Brien in one hand, on the Bill Russell Trophy in the other and telling everybody to stick it. I proved you all wrong, and
it would all have been part of his journey. I still think that day could be coming, but the Mavericks don't. And the Mavericks know more about Luca than anybody else in the NBA.