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I don't want to sound like an expert, but this past weekend I've had something big Strange It happened in the basketball world.
As someone who pays less attention to sports, stories from that world only go beyond my radar when no one can stop talking about them. But as a gossip, I really love the confusion. If you're like me, the discussion on February 1st where Dallas Mavericks trading star Luka Doncic listens to the Los Angeles Lakers is confusing, emotional and very juicy. You may notice that. Angry fan? Bad business deal? What's going on here?
To better understand why many people have strong opinions and wild theories about tall Slovenian men and billionaire power brokers named Miriam, I'm a homemade expert, VOX We asked senior correspondent and big basketball fan Dylan Scott to break it all for us.
Dylan, why is our colleague talking about someone named Luka?
Luka Doncic, one of the world's youngest professional basketball players, was traded for the Los Angeles Lakers, a star player for six seasons by the Dallas Mavericks. It's hard to capture in words how shocking this is, even for those who follow the league closely. Hell, even for the people in league. I can send you multiple quotes from players saying they don't understand how this happened.
We all tend to exaggerate after a big story breaks, but we can easily create the argument that it is the most amazing deal in NBA history. I was about to go to sleep on a Saturday night and saw the news, scrolled through Reddit and woke up for another 2 hours.
Is it really weird to swap players?
Swapping players is not strange. It happens all the time. It's strange to exchange player Like Luka Doncic。
Well, Speed Round: Luka was a teenage phenomenon in the European professional league before coming to the NBA. Dallas acquired him on his third pick in the 2018 draft. (That's a completely different story, but we can't get into it now.)
He quickly became one of the best offensive players in the league and is perhaps the second best now. He won the Rookie of the Year in his first season. Every year since then, he formed the first team of the All-NBA. So he was one of the five best players in the league. Last year, he scored the most points per game for any player.
But wait, there's more. He's particularly good in the playoffs. Even after being injured last year, he led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals. They lost, but Luka is only 25 years old. Most NBA players reach their peak in their late 20s.
The future looked very bright. Most other teams are desperately searching for their own Luka Doncic. So it made the reason why the Mavericks gave up on him mysterious.
What is the team leadership doing here?
Well, you want to trade Luka Doncic. It's a strange choice, but it's fine. So you're definitely going to get as many great players and draft picks as possible for him, right? If you are giving up on your best player, you want to give yourself the tools to become good again in the future.
Instead, the Mavericks are seven years older than Luka, and have too many great seasons (Anthony Davis), a slightly promising young player, and one excellent player who may not have much draft pick. I am. This isn't a big deal compared to previous big hit NBA deals. Mavericks' leadership openly acknowledges what they did do not have Ask many teams for the best offers. They spoke with the Lakers. This is not a way to do business in the NBA or anywhere else.
It's very confusing and helps with all sorts of guessing. Some people think that Mavs was genuinely concerned about Luka's health because of his injuries this year (though he has been a very durable player up until now). Some think he has a personality conflict with coaches and other high-ranking officials. The chosen few even think that Mavs might be better without him.
But the most interesting explanations I've read come from people like longtime NBA reporter Henry Abbott. It's still hard to be certain – we're all guessing here – but that seems to me that there's a basic story: ownership of the Mavericks is because they really don't care A lot of people didn't want to keep paying hundreds of millions of dollars if the team is good. But they also knew that if they openly shopped their best players, the fans would be furious.
So they made a quick and quiet trade to minimize blowback that could stop it before it was completed. , especially when the responsibility is primarily placed on general manager Nico Harrison. They are not interested in making Mavs fans happy or trying to win a championship. That's not why franchises are valuable to them. (Again, this is the theory.)
Does the Maverick owners not care if their team is good or if their fans deny them?
Sports fans may think that rich people will buy sports teams to love the game. But for billionaires, these are business transactions, and they mostly want to make money.
The owner of the Mavericks is Miriam Adelson, widow of Sheldon Adelson, who hosts a massive gambling empire. As Abbott said, it's a matter of public records that the Adelsons really want to build a huge sports arena/casino gambling complex. (I assume a mezzanine level sportsbook, such a synergy.) They are trying to build it in Dallas, but local politics have intensified it.
There is theory Adelsons is not to worry about whether Mavs is bad or not. If Mavs is bad and fans abandon them, the Adelsons could threaten to move their teams to Las Vegas (though there are no NBA teams for this, this has a league. They are already aiming to expand, and Adelson where business profits are already concentrated.
So it would look like this: Dallas will make up for the Arena Casino hybrid, or they will head to Vegas according to their threat. Again, in theory.
Who exactly are the fans angry at?
See, I can't stress enough that no one is sure what happened behind the scenes. There are so many leaks right now, and it's hard to know who to trust.
Whatever the leak says, it seems Adelson and his son-in-law have a say inevitable voice to oversee Mavs more directly. They own a team. There's Harrison, the general manager and ostensibly making HR decisions. We have head coach Jason Kidd. Jason Kidd occasionally clashed with Luka, but they were also very successful. Some think Kidd has to be mad. Others think he's part of it. That's what confused me.
One person who does that do not have It appears to be involved. That's true of Mark Cuban, former majority owner of MAVS. He sold his majority stake to Adelson and was supposed to continue playing a role in the basketball decision, but it appears he was not consulted by the contract.
Now, I see why people are mad at Mavs. Why are people so angry with the Lakers?
Let's be clear: people always hate the Lakers. They are Hollywood and the most famous (second) franchise in league history.
They also have a long history of buying star players with their prime numbers, like Luka Doncic. Even non-sports fans know many of these names: Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, and Lebron James.
So when people see the deal and see what the Lakers have given up, are you seriously fucking? Also? Certainly, no one blames them for making such a deal. However, this trade has negated more Lakers responsiveness.
Lakers general manager Rob Perinka also has a deep friendship with Mavs GM Harrison, so there's all the material people think is equipped with. Perhaps the league is just trying to acquire another young star for its most iconic team, the Lakers, just before LeBron retires for good. (He's 40 years old!)
I do not support these conspiracies. I don't know if you know for certain why the transaction happened. I'm leaning towards non-sport reasons for Dallas ownership doing this. It turns out that this is certainly a combination of factors.
But as a drama, this was truly a perfect storm. The young basketball star has been traded for the Lakers for a suspicious-looking deal for some reason. I still can't believe it.
