February 4, 2025 • 14 mins
Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
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
(00:25):
traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Nope, and I suspect, actually, I'll ask you, did you
have any inkling this was coming at all?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Zero Oka zero, I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
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.
(01:02):
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,
(01:23):
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
(01:45):
one off that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
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.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
This is what they do.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
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.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
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.
(02:52):
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,
(03:14):
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
(03:37):
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.
(03:58):
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.
(04:21):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
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
(04:52):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
We know that Anthony Davis is all world.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
How do you.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Justify getting getting or giving away Luka Doncik and only
getting one first round pick in return.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
How does Brian win to us explain that?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
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
(06:00):
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,
(06:22):
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
(06:42):
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
(07:03):
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
(07:25):
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
(07:45):
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
(08:08):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
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
(08:38):
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
(08:59):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
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
(09:39):
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
(10:01):
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.
(10:22):
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,
(10:45):
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,
(11:07):
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
(11:30):
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
(11:51):
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
(12:14):
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.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
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.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
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,
(13:06):
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
(13:27):
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
(13:49):
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
(14:09):
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.
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
(00:25):
traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Nope, and I suspect, actually, I'll ask you, did you
have any inkling this was coming at all?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Zero Oka zero, I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
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.
(01:02):
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,
(01:23):
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
(01:45):
one off that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
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.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
This is what they do.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
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.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
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.
(02:52):
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,
(03:14):
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
(03:37):
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.
(03:58):
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.
(04:21):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
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
(04:52):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
We know that Anthony Davis is all world.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
How do you.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Justify getting getting or giving away Luka Doncik and only
getting one first round pick in return.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
How does Brian win to us explain that?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
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
(06:00):
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,
(06:22):
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
(06:42):
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
(07:03):
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
(07:25):
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
(07:45):
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
(08:08):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
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
(08:38):
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
(08:59):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
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
(09:39):
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
(10:01):
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.
(10:22):
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,
(10:45):
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,
(11:07):
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
(11:30):
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
(11:51):
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
(12:14):
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.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
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.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
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,
(13:06):
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
(13:27):
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
(13:49):
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
(14:09):
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.
Host
Stephen A. Smith
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