Luka to Lakers for AD

[green_bballers13]

Kyrie is another one dimensional player. I hope he signs with the Lakers as well!

[Who]

I am more worried about the fit defensively than I am offensively. Offensively they will make it work. Even if there are some diminished returns; it will work and work well. The defense is the bigger issue.

Luka has always done best with an athletic forward next to him. He struggled with Grant Williams. He struggled with Maxi Kleber. He did well with D Finney Smith. He did well with PJ Washington. Luka needs quick legs next to him.

LeBron is the same way. He is an old man. When players get old, you gotta surround them with quick feet. The best lineup with LeBron is LeBron and 4 athletes. Let LeBron's brain run the team. He will organize them. The ball moves quicker with a pass than a dribble. Let him orchestrate the show. Let the other gus be LeBron's legs for him. Do the extra running for him that he cannot do. Let them do the running to make up for LeBron not doing it.

I don't see how these two guys function together on the defensive end of the floor.

[GreenEnvy]

I am more worried about the fit defensively than I am offensively. Offensively they will make it work. Even if there are some diminished returns; it will work and work well. The defense is the bigger issue.

Luka has always done best with an athletic forward next to him. He struggled with Grant Williams. He struggled with Maxi Kleber. He did well with D Finney Smith. He did well with PJ Washington. Luka needs quick legs next to him.

LeBron is the same way. He is an old man. When players get old, you gotta surround them with quick feet. The best lineup with LeBron is LeBron and 4 athletes. Let LeBron's brain run the team. He will organize them. The ball moves quicker with a pass than a dribble. Let him orchestrate the show. Let the other gus be LeBron's legs for him. Do the extra running for him that he cannot do. Let them do the running to make up for LeBron not doing it.

I don't see how these two guys function together on the defensive end of the floor.

I don?t think the Lakers made the deal for this season. It?s for post-LeBron, whether that?s next season or whenever (although I think the Lakers won?t go beyond next season with him, but we shall see).

They brought in Luka to be the face of the team moving forward.

[Vermont Green]

I am more worried about the fit defensively than I am offensively. Offensively they will make it work. Even if there are some diminished returns; it will work and work well. The defense is the bigger issue.

Luka has always done best with an athletic forward next to him. He struggled with Grant Williams. He struggled with Maxi Kleber. He did well with D Finney Smith. He did well with PJ Washington. Luka needs quick legs next to him.

LeBron is the same way. He is an old man. When players get old, you gotta surround them with quick feet. The best lineup with LeBron is LeBron and 4 athletes. Let LeBron's brain run the team. He will organize them. The ball moves quicker with a pass than a dribble. Let him orchestrate the show. Let the other gus be LeBron's legs for him. Do the extra running for him that he cannot do. Let them do the running to make up for LeBron not doing it.

I don't see how these two guys function together on the defensive end of the floor.

I don't think the Lakers made the deal for this season. It's for post-LeBron, whether that's next season or whenever (although I think the Lakers won't go beyond next season with him, but we shall see).

They brought in Luka to be the face of the team moving forward.

This seems reasonable.  They got a player who can be the face of the franchise for a long time.  Even if it doesn't fit exactly this season, who cares.  The Lakers weren't that good anyway.  Of course they are going to jump at the chance to have Luka.

But I am not so sure that the Lakers aren't better for it this year.  Luka and LeBron to me seem better than Luka and Kyrie.  Beyond the top two, the supporting cast for either team is not anything special.  And Luka was able to carry that team to the finals.

It depends on what kind of shape Luka can get himself into through the course of the rest of the season.  Last season, I would say he was maybe 5%-10% overweight and about the same under-conditioned, and he was still able to carry a team to the finals.  If he can get back to that or better, I see no reason they can't be a threat.  OKC and DEN are probably going to be tougher outs this season which may be the difference.

[Donoghus]

Lakers got better but they didn't get "Now they're gonna win the West" better. 

I don't see them as a serious contender after this deadline.

[Who]

2 things about Lakers

(1) Lakers will be the worst defensive team out of all playoff teams

(2) Lakers will have the worst bench of all playoff teams.

Bench

G: G Vincent, Bronny
G: Shake Milton
F: Cam Reddish
F: Hachimura, Vanderbilt
C: J Hayes, C Koloko

That is the worst bench out of all playoff squads.

[Who]

The Mavs reportedly had concerns about moving forward with Luka because of his constant battle with the weighing scale. With a $345 million contract extension looming, they decided to move on without Doncic.

However, former NBA player Patrick Beverley didn't buy that explanation. Pat Bev said that, with his size, "The Don" isn't really too heavy, although he looks stocky.

"He's 6'8". What do you want him to be?" asked Beverley on his podcast. "That's like telling Jokic, 'Jokic, we want you to be 210 pounds.' Like what? No, his body frame is his body frame, and it works for him."

"El Matador" has not played a complete season in any of his six years in the league. He's played at least 70 games only twice. This season, the former Real Madrid star has appeared in only 22 games. Pat Bev, however, argues that Luka has shown up every time when he is needed the most?in the postseason.

"When it comes to the playoffs, does he miss time? I don't remember him missing time in the playoffs. Getting double-teamed, getting triple-teamed, best defender on you, trap in your pick and roll and then making you play 40 minutes a game," added Patrick.

According to DFS, the Slovenian piles up a lot of statistics every game. With what he's doing night in and night out, Finney-Smith says "Luka Magic" needs all the extra pounds to last the whole game.

"I know him. He wanna play the whole game. I think he played 40 minutes every game last playoffs," Finney-Smith said (per ESPN's Dave McMenamin). "He wanna play, so I don't look at the noise; I look at his production. He produces, though. S***, if I'm putting up the type of numbers, maybe I need to be 270."

Pat Bev compared Doncic to Denver's Nikola Jokic. At 6'11", the "Joker" is listed at 284 pounds. If you compare him to 6'10" Anthony Davis, who's only 253 pounds, that 30-pound difference in weight for an inch separation in height seems too much.

[Who]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qywUJxIM_NI

Fun video clip of Mark Cuban reacting to the Luka trade.

Cuban was on stage with Bill Gates. Cuban jokingly says, hey what would you do if after you left Microsoft Steve Ballmer came in and traded away your brand new elite operating system, Windows 11, for and older worse operating system, say Windows 10?

Bill Gates response: Hide from the press.

[Surferdad]

I wonder if Pat Riley made a play for Luka. He sure looked dejected at the Celtics game.

[Donoghus]

So no AD, Gafford, Powell, or Lively at the moment.

This thing could turn into trainwreck real fast.

[Roy H.]

So no AD, Gafford, Powell, or Lively at the moment.

This thing could turn into trainwreck real fast.

Unless they played the Celtics every night, haha.  I still can't believe we got blown out by that team.

[Who]

Rachel Nichols with availability stats for AD and Luka since Luka came into the league.

Luka has played 70% of regular season games with his "bad conditioning and lack of work ethic".

AD has played in only 55% of regular season games.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Can I confess that I liked the trade for the Mavs? I don't think they were winning with Luka, and I did have concerns about his health. It's not like they traded for a rebuild package. They got back a top 10 player in the NBA.

The only thing that I don't like is that typically you need at least an all-star wing to win a championship in the NBA. They have multiple good wings, but you have to be able to attack and score from that position.

I love the defensive unit of Lively-Davis-Washington-Christie with Irving at point guard.

As I look at it, their main competition will be the Thunder for the next few years. They are more likely to beat the Thunder with that defensive unit than with Luka.

I know its popular to trash the Mavs right now, and I think it's pretty deplorable to go all gestapo on their own fans who want Nico fired, but I liked the trade and think they are set up to win a championship better now.

[keevsnick]

Luka/Lebron I think will be very good this year. They'll have a shot in every series just based off the brilliance of those two. But its going to be very interesting to see how they build out that team long term. This summer I'd be doing everything I can to bring in a defensive anchor like Walker Kessler to fill out the Center position now that the Mark Williams has fallen through. I have a feeling their defense is what is going to doom them this year.

[Who]

I am listening to a Mavs podcast where the two talking believe AD is done for the season. They think the Mavs are deliberately delaying clear information on the injury because of the backlash from the Luka trade which would explode if they told the truth about how bad the AD injury is.

Edit: Later in the podcast, these two say the Mavs are doing this with all their injured players so it doesn't appear to be about the AD / Luka trade. Mavs give unclear return dates for all their current injured players. The only timeline they have is 2-3 months for Lively which the Mavs did not release but Shams got hold of. So that pours cold water on their AD injured for the season theory.