Trade will never ever make sense. If he indeed thought he wasn’t gonna win a title, he could have asked for the kings ransom off any team.

he can be right about Luka but still made a bad trade

the nba is the most reactive sport. the way players are talked about is like the stock market.

I genuinely haven’t seen a positive Luka post or report on r/nba or the media in months lol

Trade still makes no sense.

Luka’s looked on defense lately? -

The fuck you mean lately?

I think too many people are focused on the on-court impact, while ignoring how much Luka meant to the Dallas fanbase. That trade will always go down as a sell-out move by Nico.

Yeah, Nico’s win now plan looks great the Mavericks went from the finals to lets tank for lottery picks so we might be competitive in 3-4 years.

Trading Luka is one, bad, thing, but what they actually traded Luka for, like even if healthy this idea that this Kyrie/AD core would be some sort of tier 1 contender was flawed from the beginning and it was even if you wanted to think injuries wouldn’t happen.

Not forcing the Lakers to give up Reaves and another pick, not even trying to negociate with teams like Houston etc.

And please for the love of god let’s not act like them being lucky to get Flagg changes any of that

What i dont understand is people just focusing on doncic bad defending(which he indeed is) but those weakness can very well be masked with a right team.

What doncic brings offensively outshines 100% his lack of defense effort.

Im 100% that curry wouldnt win a single title if he wasnt backed up by a monster of a defensive team.

If you get doncic you know that you need to build a defensive powerhouse for the things to work

Still how do you justify setting back your franchise at least 10 years while giving away the single most valuable asset you have for a frequently injured overpayed out of his prime AD who would turn out to be untradeable himself only a few months later. When will people stop bringing up this Nico guy????

Bill Simmons didn’t say a word about us as the 2 seed

Does not matter. Even if he in his heart of hearts thought that Luka was insanely overrated and couldn’t be the guy to win them a title (even though they were literally three freaking wins away from a damn title….) Not creating a bidding war, not setting that team up for long-term success, was inexcusable in a way that I’m not sure we’ve ever seen before or will ever see again in the NBA

It would all make sense if Anthony Davis wasn’t all he traded for.

The trade never made sense let’s just leave it at that and it was sketchy as hell.

He didnt even open up the market for Luka to anyone but the Lakers this was intentional and his reasons for the trade made no sense. Didn’t he highlight availability or something along those lines while trading for AD. But not opening the market is sketchy part when you absolutely would have had teams throw you a kings ransom but you deliberately sold a high value asset for pennies on the dollar.

Adam Silver doesnt have a spine. I honestly think Stern looks at that trade like NBA2K and just says absolutely not and veteos it.

Trade was literally designed (not negotiated) to be friendly to the NBA’s favorite team. Due to the abysmal return, it will never matter what he was right about.

This Mavs team was built for Luka and we went to the finals.The Lakers haven’t had a chance to put a “Luka” team together. Give them time, I still believe he’ll come good. You know what, just give him back lol

bruh this is getting overblown so much. people acting like its luka’s fault the lakers are bad. lakers are better off now then they were last year

Problem isn’t trading Luka. Problem is trading him for pennies.

Even trading luka for the reasons they said can make sense in the long run. If they didn’t do it in secret behind every other teams back and get far less than what a future mvp candidate could fetch. That is the part of the deal that’s so bad it needs investigating. Why the secrecy? Were they worried another team would swoop and make a higher bid for AD. A higher bid than fucking doncic? That’s the only thing the wolves gained from doing that deal secretly. Shit never made sense and they aren’t that stupid

He still should’ve gotten a much better return than he did and let the market decide

If you ever have a top 5 player in the league and are prepared to trade them, make it public to all the other GMs and see what you can get as a best offer.

Even if you’re completely in love with a much injured PF/C because of his defence, see what you can get and then try and make it a three team trade for him.

It’s still one of the worst moves a GM has made in any sport. It’s the same level as the bengals turning down the Ricky Williams trade offer of all of the saints 1999 draft picks plus two firsts and a second.

As always, it’s not about trading Luka. It’s about what he traded him for.

Nico had a plan but it didn’t include landing Cooper. Ending up in the lottery was serendipity.

I do think the Mavs had a side deal for “future considerations” and somehow things lined up to pay them back for the trade year one.

NBA regular season is endless and there’s no reason for Luka to give it his all until the playoffs. He’s a vet now and pacing himself. He’s a proven playoff beast.

The Luka/Lakers hate wagon is really rolling ahead. 

No matter how much you post, a bad game from Luka is still 30/8/7 on lower efficiency. In the last Lakers win, he had 24 at half time. He still carried a team to a Finals that wouldn’t have sniffed it without him. 

I’ll tell you the grand total of people I’d feel good about trading Luka for - Jokic, end of list. 

Lol did Luka have this many haters before the Lakers? Maybe Dallas fans were just more conditioned to prop up their boy so it cancelled out more. Feels like he’s just getting shit on all the time here

Why would he need truth serum? He made the trade. He literally told you right there that he believed this lol.

Bitch Simmons could be a bit more thankful to Luka and teammates not able to take a banner away from his Celts.

They just cannot stop gloating on Luka personally, when the entire Lakers roster has absolutely zero chance defensively vs Detroit when they play jail rules ball. Just zero.

I always thought it was a hate boner for Embiid but it turns out it’s just for everyone apparently.

Jokic defensive highlight reel also looks terrible. Who cares you can probably put a bad defensive highlight reel for most stars in the NBA. People used to do it for Steph too.

Lukas defence or Jokic defense isn’t why those teams lose games and that’s the only thing that matters.

Luka the only reason the Lakers are in a playoff spot atm despite not having the roster for it.

People are just being dumb about it.

Let me get this straight. The Mavs made it to the finals with Luka nearly singlehandedly dispatching the Wolves in the WCF finals. Luka gets traded less than half a season later when the Mavs were the 2 seed and the hottest team in the league. The Mavs immediately end up being a non-playoff team and in the lottery right after the trade.

The Mavs are now the 7th worst team in the league and are contemplating trading the centerpiece of the Luka trade away to anyone that’s willing to take him. The only positive thing about the team is a rookie that was never part of Nico’s plan and who the Mavs have no assets for 4 years to build around because of Nico’s shortsightedness. It might take years for the Mavs to ever make it back to the WCF let alone the Finals.

And we’re talking about whether the trade was possibly good????

Hmm, are things so different from 2024 when Luka led a 5th seed to the NBA finals? Feels like the narrative wants to push Luka towards a “regular season phenom but so horrible defensively that you can’t win with him,”, but Luka historically is playoff riser and has had two different playoff runs where his teams wildly exceeeded expectations.

If that Dallas team in 2024 plays the 2023 Miami Heat or the 2025 Indiana Pacers…or the 2022 Boston Celtics…is Luka a champion?

Luka maybe having a bad month, but feels like it’s been proven you can do a lot with him if he’s surrounded with a good defensive team.

Even if this was true…a good GM wouldn’t get 5 cents on the dollar for Luka, have the audacity to defend his terrible deal by calling out Luka’s injury record after trading for a guy who could get hurt breathing too hard; trading Luka should’ve gotten a franchise changing haul, not a liquidation sale closeout box

Luka doncic is the first player in nba history to be flawed, apparently.

It’s not the trade, it’s not the reasoning behind the trade - it’s the return on the trade. The return is the problem.

It’s about the return NOT moving off of Doncic. He got NOTHING back but an oft injured AD. That’s just not good enough of a haul

Lukas bad defense isnt a big problem if you actually build a team with good defenders around him. Nobody on the lakers plays defense at all. If nico wanted a championship he would have at least tried to get someone other than fucking AD and max christie

Facts but he should have gotten Austin in the trade

Get the right pieces around Luka and he’ll get you a title. Yeah his defense is bad but the Lakers roster construction is worse imo

The Lakers are playing shit and are 20-11

The Mavs are 12-22 with Flagg and AD

Laker also have an entirely free contract slate soon outside of Luka and I assume Reaves

How is Luka averaging 33 on a 55 win team that was built to be a legacy tour for a 41yo a bad position?

He can still be right and wrong about Luka

I don’t think Luka will ever reach his potential or a chip if he doesn’t put more effort into his defense

BUT

what Nico got back in the trade was soooooooooooooooooo bad that it just totally torpedoed any goodwill of the trade

The team went to a Finals 50 games before he traded Luka and now they’re 12-22 and thats with winning a hail mary lottery. There is literally 0 way you can convince me it was a good trade unless AD and Kyrie lead this team to a championship

Not to mention that Luka is probably a top 6 MVP candidate atm. Just because Nico fucked Luka’s chance at success along with the Mavericks doesn’t mean he was right

Something fishy with that whole deal.

Such a dumb topic. Luka is one player. Build a defensive identity around him, you know… like what the Mavericks were doing.

Steph Curry has been getting torched on defense his whole career and no one talks about him like this.

It’s hard to win a title when you completely reset a players progress with his team and send him somewhere clearly not fit for his play style and won’t be for probably a few years.

Will Luka ever be a good defender, no. But he already took a team to the finals, he can clearly win a title if you build correctly around him lol. NBA media has the memory of a goldfish

It was dumb to move off of Luka who was a 26 year old generational franchise icon who just went to the Finals. The thing that makes it worse is he didn’t shop him around and get the best return. Even getting lucky with the number 1 pick. I believe everyone has a price I just don’t think Nico got anywhere close to fair value.

Simmons is a pathetic hack.

He took a bum ass mavs team that was trash to finals at 25 and was only guy who showed up also playing injured. Here’s my question? When are we gonna start to comment on other players who are absolute trash on defense and never play it. Jokic? Curry? I can go on and on. News flash not every player in NBA can thrive and play well on both sides of the ball.

Also lets stop reacting to everything thats being said on a podcast notorious for saying stupid shit 😂

You could trade Luka to the worst team in the NBA for their 1st round picks for the next couple years and it would still be a bad trade because he would make those teams better making your picks less valuable. That’s how stupid this trade was

The generationally bad trade isn’t from trading Luka. We’ve seen top guys get traded for no reason in other sports, though it’s rare and not great for the fanbase. The trade is ridiculously bad because of the return. Even if you’re some genius who claims that you can’t win a title without Luka (crazy because at least you’ll be a winning team for over a decade and make a ton of money) then any good GM would’ve gotten a lot more

Its still a terrible trade because the Mavs are on the verge of trading the piece they coveted over Doncic.

The problem with this is that the Mavs are terrible.

Of course Nico’s going to say that. You don’t have to give him truth serum or get him drunk in order to get him to admit it. He’s always going to try to justify his worst decision.

The only question is if you gave anyone else truth serum or got them drunk, would they say that Nico was right to think that Luka’s not the kind of player to win a title.

They’re talking about moving AD for green and picks lol, it’s such a train wreck.

Give this argument a rest lol.

this is only relevant if he was making a personal decision, like in fantasy basketball. not if he was trying to maximize the teams potential and future.

Yall really sick of Luka dropping 35, 13, and 11 and a regular basis huh. He should retire hih

Luka was able to make it to the finals hobbled 2 seasons ago. He was only 25 when they traded him. Trading for AD shortens your window, your ceiling, and you have to know the first rounders would default to late picks. By his own admission, they intended to compete, not be a lottery team and get the first pick.

Luka is what he is. He’s so great on offense. You want to encourage him, but also cut him some slack on defense. The issue is when you have two other players like that, LBJ and Reaves along with having B-tier defenders at wing and center.

Listen. If you guys don’t think that Cooper was 100% part of that trade put on by Silver and the NBA to get Luka into the golden market you are just being naive. Mavs won the trade basketball wise because Cooper was part of it accept it or not. Lakers won the trade for the LA financial market and the NBA IS THE HOUSE.

Luka could play offense then sit down at the free throw line on defense every possession for the rest of his career and this would still be the worst trade in sports history.

The trade was insane and still is, the mavs were built around him and were contenders. He’s just gone to a team not built around him and has no real chemistry with him.

To me the issue is not necessarily about giving up on Luka as a player. Stupid, maybe, but not egregious. The thing that ultimately got him fired is giving him to the Lakers for basically nothing because he’s close with AD.

Thinking of all the picks he could have gotten if it had been an open bidding war makes me blush

It wasn’t about trading away Luka. It was the return package that was very sketchy.

Only 1 team was in the running and it made no sense. Also important to note that Nico is a Laker fan.

If you gave him the truth serum he would expose the NBA for what they obvious did

Does Bill ever make valid arguments anymore? The idea of trading a superstar in his prime for Anthony Davis is crazy. He lucked into cooper and they still suck

Didn’t Luka lead the Mavs to the Finals before getting traded? Sounds pretty close to winning a title.

This is just like the Derek queen trade. If queen turns out awesome, it’s still a bad trade based on the valuation of the assets.

If Luka never wins a title, it’s still a bad valuation of the assets. Could have gotten more for Luka if he’d shopped him. In fact, they could be contenders with the rest of the roster they had.

If Luka was never traded, the Mavericks without Coop and AD would be the 2 or 3 seed TODAY

People judge trades too much based on what happens after the trade rather than the face value of the players during the trade.

This trade was so bad in terms of face value that what happens after is a moot point. Luka’s value was so high and Nico traded him for dimes on the dollar.

Trading Luka wasn’t the problem. What he traded Luka for was.

If you thought he didn’t fit into how you wanted your team constructed, that’s fine. Not getting his fair market value is unforgivable.

You weren’t moving off a busted lottery pick, you were looking to move a generational, MVP, face of the franchise player. And you got outclassed in a private setting.

I mean if the issue was salaries and title windows with defense. It would have made a lot more sense to trade an aging Kyrie while his value was high again post finals run, and use that to get a defensive minded guard to put with Luka. Trading the 26 year old guard for a big never made sense. The Mavericks did not need size and defense, they had all of that already. Logically you replace a guard with players that can fill the spot and somewhat match the production. The Mavericks have lacked shot creation and shooting after the trade because Nico thought Kyrie was gonna play 70 games a year.

Another example of why you should ignore every basketball take that comes out of Bill Simmons’ mouth

It’s annoying that we’re still talking about this but I guess it’s inevitable given how bonkers the trade was. It’s gonna be talked about for years.

Looking thru the comments in this thread, the amount of people who are still trying to seem smarter than everyone by desperately insisting this wasn’t an all time bad trade is crazy 

Luka made it to the finales. This argument is stupid.

Simple question: why doesn’t JJ bench him when he’s not trying? He’s clearly gassed or disinterested.

Worst trade of all time ever

Luca went to the finals

You can make this reel from any of Luka’s seasons. I don’t understand why this season is special.

It was a bad, bad trade. End of story. Regardless of how flawed you think Luka is as a player.

It isnt that he was traded, it is that the return was abysmal.

Nico is why we have NBA2K trade limits

Nobody in the NBA gives a flying FUCK about the regular season, news flash guys. Luka is as good as it gets and when it matters he will do his part, anybody doubting that needs to go rewatch his playoff run carrying the Mavs…

You better give me about seven more drinks before there’s any chance I’m gonna think he’s still in it with that ridiculous trade. Could have at least gotten Reaves and two firsts to go with Street Clothes if you hate Luka that much.

Dude they’re literally calling teams begging them to take Davis!!! I don’t think anyone with half a brain can argue that was anything other than an absolute catastrophe of a trade

He was right but made a terrible trade