Speaker 1: Ah Yes.
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Speaker 2: But right now it's time for this.
Speaker 3: Listeners, here comes KT fun tweets.
Speaker 1: Were the round the spirits.
Speaker 2: Now let's come around the sports KT fun tweets as
Speaker 2: all the sports yea.
Speaker 1: And the words of a wise man, did you catch
Speaker 1: your game?
Speaker 2: Wive's right, man, there's so much about this that I
Speaker 2: want to talk about. The thing that stood out to
Speaker 2: me for it even started was MAVs GM Nico Harrison
Speaker 2: down on the court and Luca's warming up on one side.
Speaker 2: He's on the other side, and I thought, man, that
Speaker 2: is fascinating, And I just didn't know if that was normal,
Speaker 2: if that was aggressive, if he's just like so in
Speaker 2: on his conviction to make the trade that he's just
Speaker 2: telling the world. Yeah, man, I did this trade. I
Speaker 2: believe in it. I'm here, or I don't. I don't
Speaker 2: even I don't. I don't even know how to process it.
Speaker 2: I just found it. I found it to be very unusual.
Speaker 2: I wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 1: I guess I.
Speaker 4: Wasn't expecting it either, under the circumstances. I think you,
Speaker 4: if you wanted to call it aggressive or whatever, it's
Speaker 4: not in any way abnormal. Right, The vast majority of
Speaker 4: the time I've ever talked to Nico has been at
Speaker 4: that time of a game, because it's what happens is
Speaker 4: is front office people are out there usually, like the
Speaker 4: ESPN guys are out there. I mean, if you want
Speaker 4: to go hobnob in NBA circles, you go get your
Speaker 4: media credential and you stand out there two hours before
Speaker 4: tip and players are coming out and shooting, and like
Speaker 4: the clips you saw, like I saw three different clips,
Speaker 4: and Nico's got a different person standing next to him
Speaker 4: talking to him each time. That is normal NBA course
Speaker 4: of action. However, I would suggest that last night was
Speaker 4: anything but normal NBA circumstances. So read into that whatever
Speaker 4: you want.
Speaker 1: Did that catch anybody else as being odd? Your Chris?
Speaker 3: I mean, I thought all of it was odd, just
Speaker 3: the entire night in general. Like I saw Luca was
Speaker 3: doing some push ups in the pregame, thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: That happens every previo. He does that all the time.
Speaker 4: Okay, he shoots, he shoots, so he does it here
Speaker 4: and I'm sure he's found guys out there. They do
Speaker 4: a shooting contest and if he makes the shot, they
Speaker 4: do the push ups. If he misses, he does the
Speaker 4: push ups.
Speaker 3: The thing that you're watching for a couple things, you're
Speaker 3: just watching for a is he about to in the
Speaker 3: first five minutes of the game jack every shot? And
Speaker 3: he kind of was, but it wasn't overt because the
Speaker 3: Mavericks were paying a lot of attention to him, and
Speaker 3: then you're waiting on him too. I was hoping the
Speaker 3: broadcast would have done a better job of pointing out
Speaker 3: where exactly Nico was sitting. But you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: they showed him later in the game, but I'm talking
Speaker 3: about in the first quarter, and there is.
Speaker 2: An awesome picture where it looks like they're staring at
Speaker 2: each other.
Speaker 3: Is that real?
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, that was online so fast. I was like,
Speaker 3: this has to be photoshop, this has to.
Speaker 2: Be there's another one of Luca's standing right next to
Speaker 2: Ja Kid, and somebody took that. Have you ever seen
Speaker 2: the picture of the two dogs at the intersection where
Speaker 2: one dog is in the car next to you and
Speaker 2: he's looking at you. So he's looking at one dog
Speaker 2: so aggressively, going yeah, what what and the other dog
Speaker 2: in the car closest to the cameras going I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm just looking straight ahead. I don't see anything. I'm
Speaker 1: not turning to the right. I'm not turning the right.
Speaker 1: Look over here, look over here, not looking over there.
Speaker 1: I'm looking straight ahead and looking straight ahead.
Speaker 4: I had never seen that picture you're referencing until last night.
Speaker 1: When I saw it, I died laughing. It is so funny.
Speaker 2: It was, you know, there was so much stuff surrounding
Speaker 2: the game, beyond the game, so much emotion. He ends
Speaker 2: up having a triple double in a great game and
Speaker 2: Lakers win, But it wasn't a fifty burger like I
Speaker 2: was thinking or anything. And yeah, obviously there's a lot
Speaker 2: of emotion for him. He's he wasn't just out there
Speaker 2: on full spite mode. You know, you know what he
Speaker 2: what he did.
Speaker 4: In hindsight, I guess if I had spent a little
Speaker 4: more time thinking through it, what he did is he
Speaker 4: did exactly what he was supposed to do. Because the
Speaker 4: Los Angeles Lakers have been crushing people for weeks and
Speaker 4: it happened before Luca ever showed up.
Speaker 1: They've been on a tear.
Speaker 4: And I know, you guys think I'm doing a bit
Speaker 4: on Austin Reeves.
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves is great.
Speaker 3: That hurt more than Luca making shots as Austin Reeves
Speaker 3: making show.
Speaker 4: He killed us, and he's been doing that all season long.
Speaker 4: And so I right now, all Luca's got to do
Speaker 4: is just come in and try to fit in.
Speaker 1: And it's very difficult.
Speaker 4: Think about what Kyrie did when Kyrie got here, and
Speaker 4: it's very difficult to fit in with something when you're
Speaker 4: a dominant player and the team you're coming to is
Speaker 4: playing incredibly well.
Speaker 1: And they didn't have to gut their team to get you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean they didn't have to give
Speaker 2: up everybody to get him.
Speaker 4: And so they So anyways, he's got to figure out
Speaker 4: how to be Luca, and I think like it's huge
Speaker 4: for him that Lebron. I think the reason we were
Speaker 4: talking about this earlier. I think the reason Lebron walked
Speaker 4: off the court in the fashion that he did is
Speaker 4: I think he was letting the NBA know, bro, this
Speaker 4: is my team right now and we're playing badass because
Speaker 4: of me, and everybody needs to recognize that. And so
Speaker 4: I'm not going to stand around out here. I'm going
Speaker 4: to head to the locker room. And He's saying and
Speaker 4: doing all the right things. But I do believe Lebron's
Speaker 4: watching all this going all right, man, y'all just remember
Speaker 4: who Lebron James is and and I think that the
Speaker 4: way that Luca plays in the way le Bron plays
Speaker 4: will perfectly compliment one each other one another in playoff basketball.
Speaker 3: I think when I was watching, Oh, there's there's a
Speaker 3: million different things here. At the end, I loved every
Speaker 3: MAVs player dap up Luca and like excited to go
Speaker 3: see him.
Speaker 1: So you know, like how the players feel about things.
Speaker 3: Coaches too, every single Yeah, I mean there was coaches too, exactly.
Speaker 3: So I mean that was like that was the part
Speaker 3: that I hurt the most for me, is saying just
Speaker 3: a little thing like Jayden Hardy going over and just
Speaker 3: giving him a big hug is like.
Speaker 1: Or the Kyrie handshake before started again. I almost couldn't
Speaker 1: watch the game from that.
Speaker 2: The hardest thing and by the way, Laker fans chanting
Speaker 2: thank you Unko.
Speaker 1: It's amazing he's in the building for that.
Speaker 2: The hardest thing for me is watching Jeanie Buss or
Speaker 2: Polinka or whatever talk about how they can't believe they're
Speaker 2: so lucky to have landed one of the best players
Speaker 2: on earth, and they're like, these things just don't happen.
Speaker 2: You just how do you ever, We never in a
Speaker 2: million years imagine this was even a possibility.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like, yeah, that's got we feel too. Nobody.
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean people on opposing teams and Billy
Speaker 4: just followed the league and all that are just like,
Speaker 4: all right, okay, this is what it is.
Speaker 1: This is what it is. Again.
Speaker 4: I don't think Nico did it just by himself. He
Speaker 4: may have been the only one to know until the
Speaker 4: very end, but I mean, he had conversations with guys
Speaker 4: on the It's evident from all the stories that are
Speaker 4: out there that these are things that the front office
Speaker 4: had talked about, and it's not just coming from one source,
Speaker 4: it's coming from multiple, multiple writers or writing about it.
Speaker 1: And so it's the thing.
Speaker 4: Now, that's not the thing that's amazing about all this
Speaker 4: to me is that no one, very few people are
Speaker 4: willing to recognize the idea that several things can be
Speaker 4: true at once. It's got to be black and white,
Speaker 4: and it's got to be a civil war. And it's like,
Speaker 4: just because he had these issues, that doesn't mean it
Speaker 4: was right to trade him. Like you can hang on
Speaker 4: to guys that are problematic in some ways and hope
Speaker 4: that it gets better or formulate ways to get better.
Speaker 4: The thing I've said, I bet I've said this twenty
Speaker 4: times to people. Man, it is in no way surprising
Speaker 4: to me, but it is absolutely shocking. Because if you
Speaker 4: know that people feel a certain way, then it shouldn't
Speaker 4: be surprising that they want to move on. But the
Speaker 4: way in which it happened, man, that was pretty shocking.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're still long, what are we on?
Speaker 1: Three weeks? How long is it there?
Speaker 3: Twenty two?
Speaker 2: No one can rationalize the return, no one can make
Speaker 2: sense of that. But that's what they wanted, That's what
Speaker 2: they wanted but I saw this quote from Stein today
Speaker 2: whispers via league sources, suggesting Dallas's decision makers, most notably
Speaker 2: Nico Harrison, no longer wanted Planet Mavericks to orbit around
Speaker 2: Doncic and had grown determined to trade him by.
Speaker 1: This summer at the latest.
Speaker 2: So they were just done with the conditioning with his
Speaker 2: own personal training team. There's obviously a lot of talk
Speaker 2: about the hookah, smoking a hookah and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: You have Michael Finley taking a beer away from him.
Speaker 2: You know, all those things all factor into them just
Speaker 2: saying hey, and we don't want to pay him seventy
Speaker 2: million a year. We don't think his health is going
Speaker 2: to improve by if he continues with this lifestyle.
Speaker 1: We can't reach him.
Speaker 2: Seventy million a year is a lot of money, and
Speaker 2: then we're pot committed to that and it just subject
Speaker 2: to if he decides to take it seriously or not.
Speaker 2: So we don't want to be We don't want our
Speaker 2: world to revolve around him. I get that, I understand
Speaker 2: feeling that way. I still wish they could have fixed it.
Speaker 2: And when Luca showed up in LA and first started
Speaker 2: playing games, you're like gohly Man, he is he is
Speaker 2: out of shape, but by last night he looked like
Speaker 2: he's in significantly better shape.
Speaker 1: I mean, he looks twenty pounds later in two weeks.
Speaker 5: You just wish more people had see how we're going
Speaker 5: back and talking about the trade. You just wish more
Speaker 5: people had to say before it was just done and
Speaker 5: it's over because he's twenty five and like. But if
Speaker 5: they were done with it and the other the key
Speaker 5: component of all this is he wanted Anthony Davis on
Speaker 5: this team. Yeah, Niko wanted Anthony Davis on this team.
Speaker 4: He he does not, so everyone thinks this, But the
Speaker 4: guy who made the decision doesn't think the same way
Speaker 4: everybody else does. He thinks Anthony Davis and Luka Doncic
Speaker 4: are comparable players. In his mind, those are comparable players.
Speaker 4: And the reason that he got a first round pick
Speaker 4: and got Max Christie out of it probably has to
Speaker 4: do with the age. That's I'm not saying it's right.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying that's what that person thinks.
Speaker 3: I'm curious what the owners think about just the business
Speaker 3: side of it though, too.
Speaker 1: You know, they probably think differently about it now. Right.
Speaker 2: But because even if he does think that, I agree
Speaker 2: he does think that the rest of the league is shocked,
Speaker 2: and so it's like he went into that negotiation. That's
Speaker 2: just the part about that doesn't sit well with me,
Speaker 2: that he had a long standing relationship with Polinka and
Speaker 2: here's Polinka now seemingly, you know, dealing from you know,
Speaker 2: not having to pay full price for what the rest
Speaker 2: of the league would have paid for that. And yeah,
Speaker 2: that's just hard, man, It's hard. And look, it's like
Speaker 2: you rip the scab off every time there's some new thing,
Speaker 2: some new triggering thing. You know, it's gonna be that
Speaker 2: way for the next decade. He's not, you know, because
Speaker 2: he's just gonna keep setting records and you would think,
Speaker 2: presumably they'll build a statue of him one day. Each
Speaker 2: thing along the way is gonna sting a little bit.
Speaker 2: The only thing that could help it is if the
Speaker 2: Mavericks are just really good and win a ton.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I've decided to be a Wizards fan now,
Speaker 1: so have you? Yeah? Oh, they finally got rid of Kuzma.
Speaker 3: I always liked Magic, which would make you think I
Speaker 3: would go pull for the Orlando Magic.
Speaker 2: Ye, But no, all right, there it is little MAVs,
Speaker 2: Luca Lakers, Coming up next, it's the Today Game, the
Speaker 2: only segment of the day that will not be podcasted.
Speaker 2: It must you must listen live to hear this