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Notes -
The less-conspiratorial explanations I’ve seen make some sense, at least as far as why Luka was traded, although they do very little to explain the specific circumstances of the trade, the way it was executed, etc.
Someone brought up some recent comments by Harrison that “defense wins championships”; Luka is a notorious turnstile on defense, and I could understand Harrison being frustrated by Luka’s lack of improvement on that end despite Mavs staff presumably making it a point of emphasis. Luka’s conditioning is also poor and it’s possible that this recent injury was a wake-up call to the organization that his long-term health trajectory is discouraging and will make his impending supermax contract a difficult pill to swallow. As much as I love Luka, I could see someone convincing me that in six years he’ll either be out of the league or a shell of himself physically. Besides the alcohol thing someone else brought up, there’s also been a lot of speculation that he, in true Slav fashion (consider the intriguing NBA what-if Milos Teodosić), smokes a lot of cigarettes and has failed to stop doing so despite the imprecations of the team.
Of course, none of this, even if true, would justify the clandestine, rushed execution of the trade. I think most sports conspiracy theories — even the ones I want to be true, like the one about the refs helping the Chiefs — are bullshit; however, this trade is so inexplicable it has me at least intrigued by the possibility. I’ve been out on the NBA for years now, for reasons which are also nicely illustrated by this trade: there just aren’t any superstar players left who will spend their entire career playing for one team. Curry, Jokić, and Giannis are the only ones I can think of at this point (EDIT: for some reason I thought Booker had been traded, so add him to the list, and I guess if you consider Trae Young a star you can add him as well) and frankly I think the writing is on the wall for Giannis to leave the Bucks too at some point in the not-too-distant future. The Mavs had the most likable star in the league — a borderline-schlubby white guy, who gives the visual impression that some random Slovenian everyman was granted basketball superpowers by a genie — in his prime and they still traded him away. If I had a hometown team I could be invested in no matter who wears the jersey, it’d be one thing, but since I don’t, it makes it very hard to stay invested in a particular team when the roster turnover makes it so that I can’t develop a sustained parasocial relationship with any particular individuals on that team.
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