Nico Harrison was right.

[Sonic Boom of the South]

The Mavs hot garbage now and possibly coulda pulled some moves to win a ring with Luka.

 

[GoldenGlove]

Conditioning and defense isn't the only issue with Luka. His immaturity with officiating is another thing the organization and his teammates were done with.

Add in that he's hurt and was out of shape while on the cusp of signing that Supermax, they were like, we straight.

You can't defend his antics with the refs. How many times does he ignore getting back on defense because he's arguing about the last play?

I think this is what people are missing. In order to win a title with Luka, you have to have great rim protection and multiple All-Defense wings to support him on that side of the ball. He can carry an offense and against some teams get away with being a turn style on defense... but Boston put the gameplan and blueprint on tape on how to beat him.

Attack him relentlessly and he'll give up baskets, and then he'll fold mentally crashing out on the officials for not getting calls.

Typically... the star player contributes to that tho. That's the difference.

Your best player is either a great 2 way player, or they play great team defense within the scheme and aren't completely exposed/destroyed and embarrassed like we saw happen to Luka.

Steph Curry isn't necessarily seen as a great defensive player, but he's not a complete liability on defense either. He's also not walking up the floor in the Finals because he didn't get a foul call. Jokic isn't dominating as a rim protector, but he's not blowing coverages or just not playing defense because of being a lazy fukk.

You need complete buy-in from everyone, on both sides of the ball. As good as Luka is, he picks and chooses when to try on defense. It's no different than when we watched prime Harden in HOU.

Posts from when the trade happened. I got the idea for the trade... outside of ownership not wanting to pay him. Just from a basketball perspective, I got it. As good as Luka is offensively, he can be a complete liability on defense which compromises your entire defense.

Which goes into the point that the team you build around him needs to have a lot of players that are fine covering for him literally every possession.

Out of all the super-star talents in the NBA, Luka is probably the hardest to build around to win a championship with.

 

[UpAndComing]

Nico constructed the perfect roster for Luka last year with all the bigs and defenders that covered up for his lazy defense but also were good at lobs/finish around the rim that Luka was able to create.

Then tore that shyt down, took the Lakers best big/defender that the Mavs didn't even need, and shipped Luka to a roster that is the worst roster for his skillset. Nico essentially torpedoed two teams with the trade

Guy is playing 9D chess.

Absolute facts. Got me wondering, is Nico Harrison a Celtics fan?

 

[A Tribe Called Quest ™]

he just got to the finals last year at 25 foh

Did he win?

 

[Goat poster]

Posts from when the trade happened. I got the idea for the trade... outside of ownership not wanting to pay him. Just from a basketball perspective, I got it. As good as Luka is offensively, he can be a complete liability on defense which compromises your entire defense.

Which goes into the point that the team you build around him needs to have a lot of players that are fine covering for him literally every possession.

Out of all the super-star talents in the NBA, Luka is probably the hardest to build around to win a championship with.

Agreed

It's wild that Luka doesn't seem to care about any of this.

 

[The Wall Brother]

 

[ALonelyDad]

He’s done miracles on meeee