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Posted
2 hours ago, Drew said:

He clearly isn't happy there, and that team was a fucking disaster roster/fit wise.

 

This. 

48 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Lakers need to upgrade the whole roster and the only real asset they have is Austin Reeves.

LBJ is LBJ and Hachimura is a workable NBA starter.
After that, Reaves would be better as a 6th man playing 20-25mins/game and  DFS is a situational 3 and D who can contribute, but the third man off the bench on a well put together squad.

The rest of the Lakers roster are no better than marginal. 

Posted
17 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

This. 

LBJ is LBJ and Hachimura is a workable NBA starter.
After that, Reaves would be better as a 6th man playing 20-25mins/game and  DFS is a situational 3 and D who can contribute, but the third man off the bench on a well put together squad.

The rest of the Lakers roster are no better than marginal. 

Except for Bronny

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Posted
44 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

This. 

LBJ is LBJ and Hachimura is a workable NBA starter.
After that, Reaves would be better as a 6th man playing 20-25mins/game and  DFS is a situational 3 and D who can contribute, but the third man off the bench on a well put together squad.

The rest of the Lakers roster are no better than marginal. 

That doesn't put them in the top half of the West and how much longer is Lebron going to really play?

Posted

LOL Papa Halliburton and the Pacers agree he will not attend any more home or away games in the postseason

Posted

Can someone explain to me how Halliburton got voted the most overrated player in the league? Who was rating him as anything higher than a nice, young Eastern Conference All-Star from a mid-tier, mid-market team who got to be a cheerleader on the Olympic team? Does his dad piss players off at every Pacers' game all year?

Usually most overrated goes to players who are winning awards but haven't won shit (Russ, Harden, Embiid, Gobert), players dudes hate and/or they feel are propped up by being on good teams (Draymond, KAT, Draymond again), or just pure attention jealously (LeBron, Steph).

Posted
4 hours ago, Drew said:

Just watch him play man...Mavs fans that have watched every game see it.  He isn't playing with the joy he had in Dallas, even when he was having bad games, or the refs got in his head...you can tell.

Maybe he'll come back next year in a better mindset. But it's pretty clear to me he's never got over the random ass trade.

Nico build around Luka, then stupidly lost all his marbles.

It'll take time in LA.

1. Your grammar sucks.

2. Luka was drafted by Donnie Nelson.

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Posted

It's funny watching the post mortem on the various shows and pods come to realize that the Luke trade might not have been as awful as everyone though.  Yes, still a bad trade.  Still disastrously bad on defense and complains a lot on offense.  

The trade was more for the future from the Lakers standpoint, I get that.  However, had a healthy Dallas played a healthy Lakers in the playoffs, Dallas wins that easily.

Posted
57 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

It's funny watching the post mortem on the various shows and pods come to realize that the Luke trade might not have been as awful as everyone though.  Yes, still a bad trade.  Still disastrously bad on defense and complains a lot on offense.  

The trade was more for the future from the Lakers standpoint, I get that.  However, had a healthy Dallas played a healthy Lakers in the playoffs, Dallas wins that easily.

That would have been even more true if Luka was playing for Dallas.

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Posted
1 hour ago, aggie08 said:

That would have been even more true if Luka was playing for Dallas.

No.  A healthy Dallas with AD, Kyrie, etc. would have destroyed this Laker team.  Gobert looked like Wilt Chamberlain for God's sake.

Believe it or not, Luka is not the greatest player to ever play basketball.  He's a better version of Carmelo Anthony.  

Posted
3 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

No.  A healthy Dallas with AD, Kyrie, etc. would have destroyed this Laker team.  Gobert looked like Wilt Chamberlain for God's sake.

Believe it or not, Luka is not the greatest player to ever play basketball.  He's a better version of Carmelo Anthony.  

canadian ok GIF by CBC

Jesus, how quickly people forget about things that happened [checks notes] 11 months ago. Luka, flaws and all, is a Top 5 NBA player. AD is not. And you typically need one of those to play in the Finals. Neither Kyrie or AD has ever done shit as the best player on their team. 

Dallas with AD and Kyrie is sporty, to be sure, but not anywhere close to a serious championship contender.

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Posted
22 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

canadian ok GIF by CBC

Jesus, how quickly people forget about things that happened [checks notes] 11 months ago. 

Forget 11 months. Public opinion is more like game to game. 

Posted
13 hours ago, aggie08 said:

canadian ok GIF by CBC

Jesus, how quickly people forget about things that happened [checks notes] 11 months ago. Luka, flaws and all, is a Top 5 NBA player. AD is not. And you typically need one of those to play in the Finals. Neither Kyrie or AD has ever done shit as the best player on their team. 

Dallas with AD and Kyrie is sporty, to be sure, but not anywhere close to a serious championship contender.

This.  at 33 years old, Anthony Davis has won exactly 1 playoff series when he wasn't playing with LeBron.

Posted

So they’re saying it was Luka? lol, it was the roster, they’ll build around him. He was in the fucking finals last year with Dallas and the right roster.

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Posted
19 hours ago, Spare said:

1. Your grammar sucks.

2. Luka was drafted by Donnie Nelson.

What? Sure my grammar sucked, who gives a shit.

And what does Donnie have to do with this?  Nico literally built a Championship roster around Luka, warts and all, and would have been a serious contender THIS year with him.  

And stupidly traded him away.

1 hour ago, 'stache said:

So they’re saying it was Luka? lol, it was the roster, they’ll build around him. He was in the fucking finals last year with Dallas and the right roster.

Yeah the post mortem for the Lakers is "Luka is fat and out of shape and they'll never win with him" when was literally in the finals last season with a thrown together team at the deadline.

While Luka was hobbled BTW...no one remembers that for some reason.

Posted
2 hours ago, 'stache said:

So they’re saying it was Luka? lol, it was the roster, they’ll build around him. He was in the fucking finals last year with Dallas and the right roster.

And Boston ruthlessly hunted him on defense, leading to an uncompetitive series.  The best teams will always be able to exploit him on defense.  Luka will never be the centerpiece of a championship team.  Nico wasn't wrong about that, his abject idiocy was not extracting maximum value from a premium asset.

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Posted

I agree his defense should improve but disagree he can't be a centerpiece. Today's scoring machine players are mostly mid to bad at defense. That's just the way the game is seemingly played these days. Dirk got better at defense later in his career and I had hoped to see something similar from Luka. He's never going to be a stopper though and doesn't need to. 

Posted
1 hour ago, someguy said:

And Boston ruthlessly hunted him on defense, leading to an uncompetitive series.  The best teams will always be able to exploit him on defense.  Luka will never be the centerpiece of a championship team.  Nico wasn't wrong about that, his abject idiocy was not extracting maximum value from a premium asset.

These takes are always ridiculous.  They literally beat the 1, 3, and 4 seeds in the West last year and were three wins away from being a championship team in which Luka was the centerpiece.  If Tatum hurt himself or something else happened last year, they probably beat the Celtics (or the Pacers) in the finals.  And knowing how close they were to winning a championship, we have people saying that it could never happen.

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Posted
1 hour ago, 'stache said:

Today's scoring machine players are mostly mid to bad at defense.

You have to go pretty far down the list of best players before you get to a worse defender or equally bad defender as Luka. I mean it's guys like Donovan Mitchell and Brunson who are much smaller and likely not championship 1s - and if Mitchell is it's because he's on a fucking loaded team. 

Luka is good enough to be a championship 1 but part of that equation is him getting his body right and being serviceable on D. 

Posted
1 hour ago, Texas Wahoo said:

If Tatum hurt himself

Right - because Tatum is always getting injured. 

I think last season proved you can win a title with Luka but really that should have been a sweep. Boston sat Porzingis and basically punted that one game then dog walked them in G5. 

Posted
These takes are always ridiculous.  They literally beat the 1, 3, and 4 seeds in the West last year and were three wins away from being a championship team in which Luka was the centerpiece.  If Tatum hurt himself or something else happened last year, they probably beat the Celtics (or the Pacers) in the finals.  And knowing how close they were to winning a championship, we have people saying that it could never happen.

The Celtics easy path to the Finals last year also enabled them to bring back Porzingas and have fresher legs. They looked faster. Imagine a world where the Knicks beat you to a pulp then need to stop Brunson down the stretch in Game 7. None of that happened. The Celtics cruised thru the playoffs.
Posted
3 hours ago, Drew said:

What? Sure my grammar sucked, who gives a shit.

And what does Donnie have to do with this?  Nico literally built a Championship roster around Luka, warts and all, and would have been a serious contender THIS year with him.  

And stupidly traded him away.

Yeah the post mortem for the Lakers is "Luka is fat and out of shape and they'll never win with him" when was literally in the finals last season with a thrown together team at the deadline.

While Luka was hobbled BTW...no one remembers that for some reason.

1. Yes, it does.

2. You stated that Nico drafted Luka, which he did not draft Luka.

Take the L and sit down.

Posted
3 hours ago, Texas Wahoo said:

These takes are always ridiculous.  They literally beat the 1, 3, and 4 seeds in the West last year and were three wins away from being a championship team in which Luka was the centerpiece.  If Tatum hurt himself or something else happened last year, they probably beat the Celtics (or the Pacers) in the finals.  And knowing how close they were to winning a championship, we have people saying that it could never happen.

If Kyrie hadn’t been totally mindfucked playing the Celtics it would have been really close

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Posted
6 hours ago, ztejas said:

Right - because Tatum is always getting injured. 

I think last season proved you can win a title with Luka but really that should have been a sweep. Boston sat Porzingis and basically punted that one game then dog walked them in G5. 

That was just one possibility that would have led to Luka being the best player on a championship team.  My point was exactly what you stated in your next sentence - it seems pretty clear that Luka can win a title as the best player on his team, because Dallas came pretty close to doing it already.

Posted
9 hours ago, someguy said:

And Boston ruthlessly hunted him on defense, leading to an uncompetitive series.  The best teams will always be able to exploit him on defense.  Luka will never be the centerpiece of a championship team.  Nico wasn't wrong about that, his abject idiocy was not extracting maximum value from a premium asset.

What lead to the uncompetitive series was no one other than Luka being able to score. As it was we held Boston to under their season average and playoffs average in points scored every game except one. Luka's defense wasn't the main problem.

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Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, someguy said:

And Boston ruthlessly hunted him on defense, leading to an uncompetitive series.  The best teams will always be able to exploit him on defense.  Luka will never be the centerpiece of a championship team.  Nico wasn't wrong about that, his abject idiocy was not extracting maximum value from a premium asset.

In the Finals, Dallas held Boston to what would have been the 25th rated offensive efficiency in the league that season. Their problem was that nobody not named Luka could score.

Edited by aggie08
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Posted
What lead to the uncompetitive series was no one other than Luka being able to score. As it was we held Boston to under their season average and playoffs average in points scored every game except one. Luka's defense wasn't the main problem.
Exactly. The real issue was that no one outside of Luka contributed much at all. Everyone who was a force in the Western conference playoffs disappeared, especially their bigs. Indiana in the ECF looked better against Boston than Dallas did. Lukas defense in the Finals was the least of their problems.

Boston built a great roster and were too deep for just about any team last year. Dallas had a great run but got a hard reality check come Finals. They had a flawed roster around Luka.
Posted
On 5/1/2025 at 4:59 PM, Aqua Buddha said:

No.  A healthy Dallas with AD, Kyrie, etc. would have destroyed this Laker team.  Gobert looked like Wilt Chamberlain for God's sake.

Believe it or not, Luka is not the greatest player to ever play basketball.  He's a better version of Carmelo Anthony.  

This take, much like anything Skip Bayless says, will not age well.

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Posted (edited)
On 5/2/2025 at 5:24 PM, Spare said:

1. Yes, it does.

2. You stated that Nico drafted Luka, which he did not draft Luka.

Take the L and sit down.

I never said Nico drafted Luka. I said he built a fucking team that was a title contender around him.  There is no loss to take.

Edited by Drew
Posted

Junior Miller of The Ticket did a story this morning talking about how the A’s purposely tanked so that they could move the franchise to Las Vegas. I’ll spare you the details of it, but basically their playbook sounds suspiciously like what the Mavs ownership is doing. 

While I originally questioned this conspiracy theory, they pointed out that the Adelsons have withdrawn their casino support for Dallas and New Jersey, and have ramped up spending in Vegas. This theory has some legs. 

Posted

I'll defer to @Skipper on this but I will say that anyone that's clinging to the "top 5 market" shit is fucking naive. Especially throwing out the fact that Vegas is the 40th market. Bitch please. Right after the fucking NFL expands there. It's not like they know what the fuck they're doing though lol.

Posted
Junior Miller of The Ticket did a story this morning talking about how the A’s purposely tanked so that they could move the franchise to Las Vegas. I’ll spare you the details of it, but basically their playbook sounds suspiciously like what the Mavs ownership is doing. 
While I originally questioned this conspiracy theory, they pointed out that the Adelsons have withdrawn their casino support for Dallas and New Jersey, and have ramped up spending in Vegas. This theory has some legs. 

I heard that too. The A’s have been trying to leave Oakland for damn near 20 years. There is no parallel to the Mavericks. I say that but there’s no telling what that cunt Miriam Adelson is thinking. I can’t believe the league would let the Mavs leave Dallas.
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Posted
10 hours ago, threesheets said:

I'll defer to @Skipper on this but I will say that anyone that's clinging to the "top 5 market" shit is fucking naive. Especially throwing out the fact that Vegas is the 40th market. Bitch please. Right after the fucking NFL expands there. It's not like they know what the fuck they're doing though lol.

Junior Miller is about the last person I would think has absolutely any fucking idea what he's talking about.  Is there a world where things get bad enough that the NBA lets Adelson move the team?  Maybe.  And I suspect it would be paired with a new franchise at or near the same time.  The NBA is not going to just give up the Dallas market.  I'm extremely confident this wasn't some 4D chess tank job to move the team at the time of the trade.  I've seen chatter about Junior's rant but won't listen to it, because outside of cycling nonsense, he doesn't really know what the fuck he is talking about these days.    Rarely listen to the musers at all anymore.   It's not in the same universe of the A's as that has been a bottom of the barrel franchise for decades. 

If the Adelson's make a play to move the team, it will be because they inadvertently irreparably destroyed the fandom and their revenue stream, and can't get a deal done for a new arena.  Even then, I think more likely they would just sell the team as it would immediately become more valuable the minute ownership changed hands.

Posted

Oh I agree. I don't even know what Junior said, nor do I give a shit (about anything he says). I just think to say there's no way they'd move the team is short-sighted. Also agree the NBA isn't giving up DFW. 

They can fucking move for all I care.  Between that and rooting for a team owned by that family for the next 20 years, give me the former, 100%. Just leave the name. 

Jesus Christ we're Cleveland. 

Posted
25 minutes ago, threesheets said:

Oh I agree. I don't even know what Junior said, nor do I give a shit (about anything he says). I just think to say there's no way they'd move the team is short-sighted. Also agree the NBA isn't giving up DFW. 

They can fucking move for all I care.  Between that and rooting for a team owned by that family for the next 20 years, give me the former, 100%. Just leave the name. 

Jesus Christ we're Cleveland. 

Yeah, it's just annoying (and fitting) that Junior decided to put on his tin foil hat to fill air time months after the fact and months after voluminous reporting explaining in detail exactly how this played out.  The time to do this was in the days after the trade when everyone was in shock and all theories were plausible.   It's pretty clear considering the consistent insider sourcing as to what led to this for anyone that put in the effort to read/listen (which clearly disqualifies the musers as they have been mailing it in for years now).

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Skipper said:

If the Adelson's make a play to move the team, it will be because they inadvertently irreparably destroyed the fandom and their revenue stream, and can't get a deal done for a new arena

At this point the conspiracy theory and the incompetence theory converge into a single outcome. 

 

1 hour ago, Skipper said:

Even then, I think more likely they would just sell the team as it would immediately become more valuable the minute ownership changed hands.

So why would a new buyer pay the premium when a change of ownership is the thing that creates the additional equity?
If the Adelsons can’t get a stadium deal done in Dallas or Irving with a casino/resort attached or heavy taxpayer subsidies the franchise would be worth more to the Adelsons in a new arena in Las Vegas.

The number of times the league has stopped a team from moving when they can’t get a new arena built is zero. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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Posted

I'm just saying the theory that they traded Luka with the goal of moving to Vegas is ridiculous.   I'm not discounting that the net effect of that incompetence could land in the same place.  I don't think it would be easy though unless it combined with expansion.   When has the NBA ever let a team leave a market like Dallas?  Seattle probably closest I recall and not remotely the same.  Metroplex is just way too big/valuable to not have an NBA team.

The Mavs seeking a basketball only arena in fucking Irving would make me significantly less invested as a fan regardless of who owns the team it that were to happen.  So tired of this decision making. I'll never understand why owners in this city have a fixation with making it a pain in the ass for fans to attend games.

Posted

If they moved to Vegas the NBA would just add an expansion franchise in Dallas and then Seattle would get their team back likely. 

Posted
1 hour ago, Skipper said:

I'm just saying the theory that they traded Luka with the goal of moving to Vegas is ridiculous.   I'm not discounting that the net effect of that incompetence could land in the same place.  I don't think it would be easy though unless it combined with expansion.   When has the NBA ever let a team leave a market like Dallas?  Seattle probably closest I recall and not remotely the same.  Metroplex is just way too big/valuable to not have an NBA team.

The Mavs seeking a basketball only arena in fucking Irving would make me significantly less invested as a fan regardless of who owns the team it that were to happen.  So tired of this decision making. I'll never understand why owners in this city have a fixation with making it a pain in the ass for fans to attend games.

I agree. They would probably force them to sell before they allowed them to leave for Vegas.

Posted
I'm just saying the theory that they traded Luka with the goal of moving to Vegas is ridiculous.   I'm not discounting that the net effect of that incompetence could land in the same place.  I don't think it would be easy though unless it combined with expansion.   When has the NBA ever let a team leave a market like Dallas?  Seattle probably closest I recall and not remotely the same.  Metroplex is just way too big/valuable to not have an NBA team.
The Mavs seeking a basketball only arena in fucking Irving would make me significantly less invested as a fan regardless of who owns the team it that were to happen.  So tired of this decision making. I'll never understand why owners in this city have a fixation with making it a pain in the ass for fans to attend games.

The NBA is a global brand. DFW aint shit. The Mavs aint shit. The Rockets, Thunder and Spurs would dance on their grave. Then NBA just creates a new expansion team later. All transactional and disposable.
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Posted
1 hour ago, Skipper said:

I'll never understand why owners in this city have a fixation with making it a pain in the ass for fans to attend games.

Because voters in Arlington keep voting to give billionaire owners handouts.

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Posted
32 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:


The NBA is a global brand. DFW aint shit. The Mavs aint shit. The Rockets, Thunder and Spurs would dance on their grave. Then NBA just creates a new expansion team later. All transactional and disposable.

Sure buddy.  Markets don't matter.  No correlation at all between size of the market and franchise value since a 'global brand'.   The bottom 10 on this list all just a complete coincidence.

CNBC's Official NBA Team Valuations 2025: Here's how the 30 franchises stack up

 You are insane if you don't think market size correlates to how the NBA collectively views franchises.

Just now, royiv said:

Because voters in Arlington keep voting to give billionaire owners handouts.

Yeah, "I'll never understand why" was not the correct phrasing. I completely understand why.  And it pisses me off.  

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Posted (edited)
23 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

Junior Miller of The Ticket did a story this morning talking about how the A’s purposely tanked so that they could move the franchise to Las Vegas. I’ll spare you the details of it, but basically their playbook sounds suspiciously like what the Mavs ownership is doing. 

While I originally questioned this conspiracy theory, they pointed out that the Adelsons have withdrawn their casino support for Dallas and New Jersey, and have ramped up spending in Vegas. This theory has some legs. 

I've been saying that since the beginning. Next thing will be wanting a new stadium that cost extravagant dollars.

Edited by BurntOrange&White
Posted
1 hour ago, Eskimohorn said:


The NBA is a global brand. DFW aint shit. The Mavs aint shit. The Rockets, Thunder and Spurs would dance on their grave. Then NBA just creates a new expansion team later. All transactional and disposable.

This is dumb

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