Luka is a Laker, AD is a Mav, De'Aaron is a Spur, LaVine is a King, Quinn is Overwhelmed
And Nico Harrison is a war criminal. 24 hours later, I'm even more confused.
I’ve never been more sure than right now, at 11:46 PM on February 2nd, 2025, that I am dead. Luka Doncic being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers may have permanently ended my belief that the world I interact with is “real,” and not merely hallucinations being shot out from my last remaining brainwaves as I lay lifeless on my floor after choking on a calzone and before I sign out of Earth permanently.
Anyway, I was watching Severance when the news broke last night that Luka Doncic is being traded to the Lakers. The new episode is top-tier, for the record.
This whole piece might be disjointed, but that’s because my thoughts are very disjointed right now. Alas, here are all (or at least 65%) of my thoughts on Luka, Nico Harrison, AD, De’Aaron Fox, Zach LaVine, NBA trades, fear, joy, knowledge, despair, the like.
First Off… Luka Doncic of the Los Angeles Lakers
One of the more surreal sentences I will ever write as a sports analyst (is that what this is?)
I can’t add much novelty to the conversation at this point so I’ll keep this section brief; Luka and 40 year-old LeBron James is perhaps the most fascinating pairing of NBA players I will witness in my life. Two genius-level athletes who have solved the game of basketball, at distinctly different stages of their careers and lives, in the NBA’s biggest market. With Jaxson Hayes as their starting center. Oh baby.
I don’t believe this trade was foisted upon Dallas to fix the NBA’s ratings, because I go outside and have conversations with normal people and log off the internet sometimes, but I am still waiting for the catch here like everyone else. Why… did… this… happen?
Nico Harrison, Pass the Sticks
As I publish this article, we’re closing in on the 24-hour mark in post-Luka trade world. Or, we’re entering day two in Luka Doncic Is a Member of The Los Angeles Lakers world. Your lens on that probably depends on whether you can drive to an In-N-Out or a Whataburger.
And as the shockwaves die down from a transcendently talented NBA player being traded without warning, I hope we don’t grant any credibility to Nico Harrison’s idea that Luka’s conditioning or fitness was giving the Mavs pause on signing him to a supermax deal this offseason.
It’s utter bullshit, and doesn’t deserve any grace. Nico Harrison has said a lot of really dumb things over the past 24 hours but this remains the most monstrously idiotic of the bunch. (Or maybe it was him admitting the Mavericks didn’t talk to any other teams. Or maybe it was admitting that no one knew this was happening except for him. I guess there are plenty of contenders.)
It’s farcical and it’s disrespectful to all of us for anyone in the Mavericks front office to consider Luka’s fitness (or the possibility of him looking to go elsewhere) a rationale to even consider trading him— much less actually going through with it.
“He could have been smoking cigarettes bringing the ball up the fucking court and I would still be like ‘when can we sign you to the supermax?’”
-Ryen Russillo
I certainly don’t agree with Russillo on everything… but this sums it up pretty succinctly. Luka, at his least fit, is a top-five player in the NBA.
An NBA player’s fitness is not a non-issue, but it’s so, so, so distant from being an issue that should result in trading said player on a whim, and I think that’s glaringly obvious to… well, everyone not named Nico Harrison. To pivot from Luka should take his fitness more seriously to we just traded Luka to the Lakers is as big of a leap as… I was going to say the richest person on the planet doing a Nazi salute on live TV, but… yeah.
If this really is about Dallas being afraid of not being able to retain Luka in 2.5 years, then I present you a quote from me, in December 2023, talking about Donovan Mitchell.
Also Mitchell’s contract is up after next season. He’s still under contract to play a lot of basketball. Is trading a star because you think he’ll leave in two years not crazy? I think that’s crazy. Why even sign guys at all then? Five-year contract? But what if he leaves after those five years? Not worth the risk! See how silly that sounds?
History is a flat circle or it rhymes or time doesn’t exist or whatever Mark Twain said.
In an era of gargantuanly clueless and out-of-touch men, Nico Harrison is challenging for a spot on the podium.
Anthony Davis Will Be Good in Dallas
And that’s part of what makes this so fucking weird. AD is probably going to make First-Team All-NBA this year, and fans don’t give a shit because they shouldn’t give a shit! The Mavericks defense has top-five potential with AD as an anchor, but without it's “North Star” as Zach Lowe gracefully put it, the ceiling is more like a studio apartment ceiling than a luxury loft.
This team voluntarily removed itself from Finals contention for no discernable reason. Here’s the short of it; Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis is a cool combo... Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic went to the NBA Finals.
And trust me, I regard coolness more highly than almost anyone… but not above the NBA Finals. The uncool Boston Celtics winning the NBA Finals last year (VERY SADLY) holds more weight than the very cool Orlando Magic putting up a fight in a first-round series.
Dallas, after the smoke clears, has a pretty good roster — so it might be tempting to say Wow, maybe the Mavs did know what they were doing after a huge AD performance leads them to a win in a few weeks. Don’t do it. Don’t become a prisoner of the moment! We know what this is!
It Didn’t Have to Be This Way, De’Aaron
Truly, it didn’t. De’Aaron Fox has been traded to the Spurs because he asked to be traded to the Spurs — but I have yet to fully comprehend why exactly he wanted to be traded to the San Antonio Spurs.
Playing with Victor Wembanyama is probably damn fun — I don’t doubt that a bit. But the rumblings suggest that Fox wants to play for a team that’s moving toward contending for a title, and… how much faster is San Antonio’s potential path to contention right now than Sacramento’s?
Of course, Wemby will soon be much better than every Kings player, but the Spurs roster is still multiple players away from competing for an NBA title; if San Antonio does get to OKC’s level — or even close — in the next few years, will it get there that much faster than Sacramento could potentially get there if Sacramento had kept De’Aaron Fox? I don’t think so! Am I off base here, chat?
All told, I’m more sad about this trade than anything. Sad that Kings fans lost the most positive aspect of Kings fandom from the past 20 years, sad for Domantas Sabonis for losing his pal, sad that such a cool team no longer exists, sad for the end of the Beam Team as we knew it, and sad that things devolved so quickly — or seemed to from the outside — into a sad story we’ve seen play out numerous times in the past few years. De’Aaron Fox, Sacramento King made so much sense to me.
Zach LaVine in Sacramento Might Be Zach LaVine in Chicago
Meanwhile, Zach LaVine now plays for the Sacramento Kings. Okay!
LaVine has been sublime (24 points, 44% 3PT) and reunites with DeMar DeRozan in Sacramento, where they’ll flank a big European white guy… Oh, God, what have we done?
I (somewhat) kid. Domantas Sabonis is considerably better than Nikola Vucevic was when LaVine and DeRozan played together in Chicago, and the rest of the crew — Malik Monk, Keon Ellis, Keegan Murray — probably provides a little more upside than Chicago’s supporting cast did.
But overall… how different is this Kings team than those Bulls teams? I hope different — the Kings charm me — but there’s likely a first-round ceiling on this team for as long as the roster looks like this. Still, I vote to play out the year with this random assortment of players because they’ll be easy to rally behind, and that’s enough for me.
One More Thing: A Reminder
Being born a human at all is a miracle of science. Being born in the United States is… something else. There was about a 4% chance of this happening and boy, defying the odds has never felt so bad.
I don’t think it’s much secret where I stand politically based on some of the jokes (and non-jokes) in my writing, but with Trump actively trying to (literally) erase trans people’s existence, convince you that DEI is a sentient being which somehow forgoes the qualified white person in favor of the black person who’s going to crash your airplane (and specifically that fake person, for some reason) and is sending ICE to car washes to arrest people… I feel I should clarify.
Undocumented people should be left alone and allowed to live completely ordinary lives in the United States, trans people have always existed, will continue to exist, and should receive all gender-affirming care they need, ICE should be abolished and every ICE agent should be prosecuted for war crimes, DEI initiatives are great and every company that has “backed down its DEI programs” deserves to collapse spectacularly. Elon Musk also shouldn’t be able to take over the treasury but that might be a separate issue.
I know my voice doesn’t carry much weight so maybe this is pointless to say, but maybe we should all keep saying anyway regardless of how many people will hear it. If you have an opportunity to help someone, take it — always.
I’ll leave you with some good news (yes!) from my corner of the world. Whole Foods in Philadelphia unionized. Fuck you Amazon, suck my dick from the back.
Also, there will be no arena in Chinatown in Philadelphia, and the block party to celebrate that + Lunar New Year was really fun. Feels nice to get a win every once in a while.
Thanks for bringing up idiotic political views in your sports reporting. It must be frustrating for you to not be a political reporter. I’m so sorry nothing works for you right now.