Mavs weigh Nico's Future

[Wolveswin]

Are we still focusing on the fall guy?

It's exactly what ownership wants and they've done a great job of making him the scapegoat. The Luka trade happened because they didn't want to pay him the Supermax. That's what drove it. But instead of chanting "sell the team", Mavs fans chant "Fire Nico". They'll of course eventually fire him to satiate fans and get back on their good side.

Fire him and trade Davis. Mavs can actually have an exciting rebuild starting. I know they don’t own all their future picks. I think getting back 2027 1st owed Charlotte would be priority in a Davis trade. Then have 2x years to draft around Flagg - including 2026 great top-end draft.

[Madvillainy2004]

It was a bad trade because Luka's a generational talent, even if a bit lazy. You accept the laziness when the talent is that great.

However, the lack of success early is basically because Kyrie and AD are both injured. You can't fully judge him until both of those players are on the court.

We can judge because those are two players known to be hurt, especially Davis. If you trade your younger superstar for an aging, injury-prone star, how can anyone be surprised when said star gets hurt immediately? And then continue to get hurt. And everyone was saying this at the time of the trade so not revisionist history here.

Then they played on older Kyrie heavy minutes every night to try and justify the trade and he got hurt. Shocking, right?

There is no defending this trade. Fire Nico, wait until AD is healthy and playing well and get the most you can for him and start to reset the team around Flagg. This all should have been done at the end of last season but here we are.

Yeah like the big risk everyone talked about was "Kyrie/AD get hurt a lot and are over 30" then AD and Kyrie got hurt lol just an absolute joke of a trade

[Baz]

Don't care if he stays or goes. It's not about him. This is about a greedy, inept, ghoulish ownership and as long as they are around, the franchise will be dead and I hope my fellow Mavs fans don't cave because of this one, ridiculously long overdue decision.

[MrGoat]

I personally think J Kidd should be on the chopping block too if reports of him supporting the trade and being fed up with Luka were true.

I haven't heard those reports. From what I'd heard Jason Kidd had to be talked out of resigning on the spot after he learned about the trade. Just the look on his face during that first press conference after the trade with Nico really said it all. Luka covered up a lot of his coaching deficiencies that are now in the open again

Watch on YouTube

[Baz]

I'm sorry, but I don't believe Nico is the main culprit and interested party in changing Luka... especially since he was the architect of building a team tailored to his needs, with excellent results... only to destroy everything he had created a few months later and become the most hated person by any Dallas fan.

If he is fired I'd expect Adelson will muzzle him, but if not, he should tell all about what really happened.

[M2J]

Are we still focusing on the fall guy?

Seriously is ridiculous. Seems like local media using the losing to push the agenda to fire that guy. First it was the lack of bringing in a ball handler aside from Cooper ... When he brought in further all star 29 year old pg with Kyrie returning.

Dumont traded Luka... Cuban basically confirmed that. Harrison has had a successful tenure overall. Built a great young core already if things don't work out with Flagg Lively and Christie as proven talents.

AD returns likely next week. Their other centers have been out. Chill Dallas

Dumb take. The team even sucked with AD, gave the Wizards their only win with him and looked better against the decimated Pacers after he went down in the 1st quarter. The team's going nowhere. Dumont signed off on the trade but he doesn't know anything about basketball and the new evil ownership family in general doesn't care about basketball, Dumont used Shaq as an example of a player with great work ethic when Nico was doing his smear campaign against Luka after the trade and shut up after that because it was such a ridiculous take it exposed how little he knew about basketball and he was just taking Nico's word for it. And Nico could have gotten much better value in the trade if he wanted to, Nico should have been fired already

Fall guy or not (and I think he was Silver's mole all along) Nico has to go. The team clearly needs to hit the reset button and they'll never be able to trade AD for assets before he gets a serious injury with Nico at the helm because it would make him look even worse

You Mavs fans create a lot of mental gymnastics to create these arguments. Y'all be like:

Nico has mind control over a billionaire. Got it


Nico knew everybody was going to get hurt, including guys that helped them get to the finals....got it.


Nico.... Knows this season is over and they haven't even played 10 games... Played maybe 4 with AD and breaking in a rookie without Kyrie.....Got it


Speaking of Kyrie.... Nico knew that Kyrie was injured last season. He should have got another All-Star point guard to replace him with no money. Oh yes he did get a former All-Star who was 29 years old to replace him until Kyrie gets back...... Nico gotta go.... Got it.

Nico caused the thunderstorms a couple of weeks ago on Dallas..... Made the power go out.



Ugghhhh..... It's cold today... Screw Nico.

Nico let Brunson leave because he has mind control over Mark Cuban too.... Cuban lied about it being his choice.


Sticky sticky sticky bubble gum



I'm obviously right that Nico has to go. He traded Luka. He did it all by himself..... I'll tell myself that because I know I have to keep Dumont and he's not going anywhere. I trust Dumont to hire a new GM and give that GM mind control powers..... Got it

[NyKnicks1714]

Are we still focusing on the fall guy?

It's exactly what ownership wants and they've done a great job of making him the scapegoat. The Luka trade happened because they didn't want to pay him the Supermax. That's what drove it. But instead of chanting "sell the team", Mavs fans chant "Fire Nico". They'll of course eventually fire him to satiate fans and get back on their good side.

Lol. That's not why it happened. You could have traded him anywhere in the league and got actual value and not had to pay him the supermax.

Yes yes, let's believe the conspiracies instead of the obvious answer that is right in front of us.

[NyKnicks1714]

I'm sorry, but I don't believe Nico is the main culprit and interested party in changing Luka... especially since he was the architect of building a team tailored to his needs, with excellent results... only to destroy everything he had created a few months later and become the most hated person by any Dallas fan.

If he is fired I'd expect Adelson will muzzle him, but if not, he should tell all about what really happened.

Not sure what they can do to keep him quiet, but let's say he goes out and tells the media that ownership drove the Luka trade because they didn't want to pay him. Other owners won't want to hire a guy who would do that. He potentially has something to lose and not much to gain.

[MrGoat]

Seriously is ridiculous. Seems like local media using the losing to push the agenda to fire that guy. First it was the lack of bringing in a ball handler aside from Cooper ... When he brought in further all star 29 year old pg with Kyrie returning.

Dumont traded Luka... Cuban basically confirmed that. Harrison has had a successful tenure overall. Built a great young core already if things don't work out with Flagg Lively and Christie as proven talents.

AD returns likely next week. Their other centers have been out. Chill Dallas

Dumb take. The team even sucked with AD, gave the Wizards their only win with him and looked better against the decimated Pacers after he went down in the 1st quarter. The team's going nowhere. Dumont signed off on the trade but he doesn't know anything about basketball and the new evil ownership family in general doesn't care about basketball, Dumont used Shaq as an example of a player with great work ethic when Nico was doing his smear campaign against Luka after the trade and shut up after that because it was such a ridiculous take it exposed how little he knew about basketball and he was just taking Nico's word for it. And Nico could have gotten much better value in the trade if he wanted to, Nico should have been fired already

Fall guy or not (and I think he was Silver's mole all along) Nico has to go. The team clearly needs to hit the reset button and they'll never be able to trade AD for assets before he gets a serious injury with Nico at the helm because it would make him look even worse

You Mavs fans create a lot of mental gymnastics to create these arguments. Y'all be like:

Nico has mind control over a billionaire. Got it


Nico knew everybody was going to get hurt, including guys that helped them get to the finals....got it.


Nico.... Knows this season is over and they haven't even played 10 games... Played maybe 4 with AD and breaking in a rookie without Kyrie.....Got it


Speaking of Kyrie.... Nico knew that Kyrie was injured last season. He should have got another All-Star point guard to replace him with no money. Oh yes he did get a former All-Star who was 29 years old to replace him until Kyrie gets back...... Nico gotta go.... Got it.

Nico caused the thunderstorms a couple of weeks ago on Dallas..... Made the power go out.



Ugghhhh..... It's cold today... Screw Nico.

Nico let Brunson leave because he has mind control over Mark Cuban too.... Cuban lied about it being his choice.


Sticky sticky sticky bubble gum



I'm obviously right that Nico has to go. He traded Luka. He did it all by himself..... I'll tell myself that because I know I have to keep Dumont and he's not going anywhere. I trust Dumont to hire a new GM and give that GM mind control powers..... Got it

Mind control powers.

The Adelsons bought the team as an investment, they don't care about the basketball part so they are very hands off with the basketball operations. Pretty much the opposite of Mark Cuban. That's not mind control powers, they just let Nico do everything he wanted because they thought that was his job.

Keeping it a secret the way he did is the real indication that Nico was the one who orchestrated it. There is no reason for the Adelsons to not want Luka put on the market where you could have gotten a much better package for him instead of tanking the franchise's value to help out the Lakers (unless the tanking the franchise's value intentionally to move the team to Vegas conspiracies are true). For that alone he already should have been fired. The Quentin Grimes for Caleb Martin trade after the Luka trade was almost a fireable offense in and of itself, that one went under the radar because of the Luka trade.

[M2J]

Dumb take. The team even sucked with AD, gave the Wizards their only win with him and looked better against the decimated Pacers after he went down in the 1st quarter. The team's going nowhere. Dumont signed off on the trade but he doesn't know anything about basketball and the new evil ownership family in general doesn't care about basketball, Dumont used Shaq as an example of a player with great work ethic when Nico was doing his smear campaign against Luka after the trade and shut up after that because it was such a ridiculous take it exposed how little he knew about basketball and he was just taking Nico's word for it. And Nico could have gotten much better value in the trade if he wanted to, Nico should have been fired already

Fall guy or not (and I think he was Silver's mole all along) Nico has to go. The team clearly needs to hit the reset button and they'll never be able to trade AD for assets before he gets a serious injury with Nico at the helm because it would make him look even worse

You Mavs fans create a lot of mental gymnastics to create these arguments. Y'all be like:

Nico has mind control over a billionaire. Got it


Nico knew everybody was going to get hurt, including guys that helped them get to the finals....got it.


Nico.... Knows this season is over and they haven't even played 10 games... Played maybe 4 with AD and breaking in a rookie without Kyrie.....Got it


Speaking of Kyrie.... Nico knew that Kyrie was injured last season. He should have got another All-Star point guard to replace him with no money. Oh yes he did get a former All-Star who was 29 years old to replace him until Kyrie gets back...... Nico gotta go.... Got it.

Nico caused the thunderstorms a couple of weeks ago on Dallas..... Made the power go out.



Ugghhhh..... It's cold today... Screw Nico.

Nico let Brunson leave because he has mind control over Mark Cuban too.... Cuban lied about it being his choice.


Sticky sticky sticky bubble gum



I'm obviously right that Nico has to go. He traded Luka. He did it all by himself..... I'll tell myself that because I know I have to keep Dumont and he's not going anywhere. I trust Dumont to hire a new GM and give that GM mind control powers..... Got it

Mind control powers.

The Adelsons bought the team as an investment, they don't care about the basketball part so they are very hands off with the basketball operations. Pretty much the opposite of Mark Cuban. That's not mind control powers, they just let Nico do everything he wanted because they thought that was his job.

Keeping it a secret the way he did is the real indication that Nico was the one who orchestrated it. There is no reason for the Adelsons to not want Luka put on the market where you could have gotten a much better package for him instead of tanking the franchise's value to help out the Lakers (unless the tanking the franchise's value intentionally to move the team to Vegas conspiracies are true). For that alone he already should have been fired. The Quentin Grimes for Caleb Martin trade after the Luka trade was almost a fireable offense in and of itself, that one went under the radar because of the Luka trade.

If that were at all true. They wouldn't have taken the power back from Cuban the way it was an originally announced... And the way Cuban clearly would like it to remain.

Good try though

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Seriously is ridiculous. Seems like local media using the losing to push the agenda to fire that guy. First it was the lack of bringing in a ball handler aside from Cooper ... When he brought in further all star 29 year old pg with Kyrie returning.

Dumont traded Luka... Cuban basically confirmed that. Harrison has had a successful tenure overall. Built a great young core already if things don't work out with Flagg Lively and Christie as proven talents.

AD returns likely next week. Their other centers have been out. Chill Dallas

I don't understand why people must believe in weird and complex conspiracies when there's such a simple and obvious explanation.
Of course Dumont had to approve the trade, but something like this could only come from Nico, originally.

That's absolute BS. Even bringing up trading a 25yo all NBA player had to come from several organizational conversations involving ownership.... Completely non sensible statement to call trading a leading money maker franchise player coming off an NBA finals appearance for a corporation coming from the owner wanting to do it a conspiracy theory.

A GM even bringing that up could get fired for that unless you knew the owner was down for it...... Guess what? We know for a fact he was down for it.

I don't believe a single GM in the NBA could have that much power to trade a Luka level talent at that age without the owner wanting to do it. Riley included. Which is why the owner was at the presser.

What is a conspiracy is why he did it and that could be a ton of things

I will quote myself from several months ago, when the trade was fresh:

I really think there's no need for conspiracy and league involvement:
- Nico full of himself after the Mavs went to the finals
- Nico owes his career to Kobe, and sees him as a model for how a professional athlete should behave
- Nico doesn't like Luka, as a persona and as a professional basketball player
- Nico grabbing more and more power as Cuban sold and was left out from all basketball operations
- Nico pushing out from the organization all Luka guys and circling himself of yes man
- Nico foolishly sharing his frustrations with his 'friend" Pelinka
- Nico big fan of Anthony Davis, with whom he has a long timed relationship, and wants him in particular
- Pelinka smelling the opportunity and starts playing Nico like a violin, to the point Nico thinks he's the one who suggested the trade
- Nico drinking more and more of his own koolaid
- The new owner is not a basketball person, without his own network of people to ask, and he doesn't even think about consulting with Cuban (they must have an awful relationship)
- Nico mentions the 'biggest contract of all time" to a guy who doesn't understand the CBA, explains him that Luka is a fat alcoholic, unlike the real legends who were working all the time (like Shaq)
- The owner trusts his basketball expert, who was the main driving force for the Mavs reaching the finals
- Pelinka makes sure the trade remains secret because reasons, uses all the info Nico shared with him over the years to negotiate the price down
- Nico very proud for being the most powerful person in the organization. More than Cuban and more than Luka, now.

No need for conspiracies.
All I see is a narcissist, power hungry, incompetent person in a perfect storm situation without proper checks and balances.
It sounds like a metaphor of the US as a whole, actually, lol.

it made no real sense for the owner to push to trade Luka. He was his money machine and Davis was goiing to be paid more than him.
Dumont for some reason trusted Nico, and Nico qas FOS.

[Baz]

I'm sorry, but I don't believe Nico is the main culprit and interested party in changing Luka... especially since he was the architect of building a team tailored to his needs, with excellent results... only to destroy everything he had created a few months later and become the most hated person by any Dallas fan.

If he is fired I'd expect Adelson will muzzle him, but if not, he should tell all about what really happened.

Not sure what they can do to keep him quiet, but let's say he goes out and tells the media that ownership drove the Luka trade because they didn't want to pay him. Other owners won't want to hire a guy who would do that. He potentially has something to lose and not much to gain.

Owners aren't going to hire him regardless. His reputation is in the mud. He's a weasel for going along with it if it was an ownership move, but he might gain back some dignity if he takes them down with him.

[M2J]

I don't understand why people must believe in weird and complex conspiracies when there's such a simple and obvious explanation.
Of course Dumont had to approve the trade, but something like this could only come from Nico, originally.

That's absolute BS. Even bringing up trading a 25yo all NBA player had to come from several organizational conversations involving ownership.... Completely non sensible statement to call trading a leading money maker franchise player coming off an NBA finals appearance for a corporation coming from the owner wanting to do it a conspiracy theory.

A GM even bringing that up could get fired for that unless you knew the owner was down for it...... Guess what? We know for a fact he was down for it.

I don't believe a single GM in the NBA could have that much power to trade a Luka level talent at that age without the owner wanting to do it. Riley included. Which is why the owner was at the presser.

What is a conspiracy is why he did it and that could be a ton of things

I will quote myself from several months ago, when the trade was fresh:

I really think there's no need for conspiracy and league involvement:
- Nico full of himself after the Mavs went to the finals
- Nico owes his career to Kobe, and sees him as a model for how a professional athlete should behave
- Nico doesn't like Luka, as a persona and as a professional basketball player
- Nico grabbing more and more power as Cuban sold and was left out from all basketball operations
- Nico pushing out from the organization all Luka guys and circling himself of yes man
- Nico foolishly sharing his frustrations with his 'friend" Pelinka
- Nico big fan of Anthony Davis, with whom he has a long timed relationship, and wants him in particular
- Pelinka smelling the opportunity and starts playing Nico like a violin, to the point Nico thinks he's the one who suggested the trade
- Nico drinking more and more of his own koolaid
- The new owner is not a basketball person, without his own network of people to ask, and he doesn't even think about consulting with Cuban (they must have an awful relationship)
- Nico mentions the 'biggest contract of all time" to a guy who doesn't understand the CBA, explains him that Luka is a fat alcoholic, unlike the real legends who were working all the time (like Shaq)
- The owner trusts his basketball expert, who was the main driving force for the Mavs reaching the finals
- Pelinka makes sure the trade remains secret because reasons, uses all the info Nico shared with him over the years to negotiate the price down
- Nico very proud for being the most powerful person in the organization. More than Cuban and more than Luka, now.

No need for conspiracies.
All I see is a narcissist, power hungry, incompetent person in a perfect storm situation without proper checks and balances.
It sounds like a metaphor of the US as a whole, actually, lol.

it made no real sense for the owner to push to trade Luka. He was his money machine and Davis was goiing to be paid more than him.
Dumont for some reason trusted Nico, and Nico qas FOS.

Like I said in my previous post in this thread. It's all conspiracy theories as to why they trade Luka. But make no mistake the owner traded.

As a person who knows several wealthy people and how they oftentimes do business. It can often be personal. Again conspiracy time. But, it could be that Luka didn't want to go play golf with him.... Still saw Mark Cuban as his owner? So Patrick reduced Cubans status and when Luca didn't play ball and network with the owner... And he's also injured at the time... And he's also not playing defense.. And the overwhelming theory out of the finals was that they lost because Luka didn't play defense... Bye

Something always changes when there's new ownership for these sports teams. Sometimes his leadership. Coach and GM. Sometimes it's franchise player. This move fully fits that bill. For example in Boston they won a ring and now they've blown up their team and part due to the injury, but that was happening due to the tax anyways. In LA Jeannie is supposedly still the governor, but they're actively plotting to get rid of LeBron

[dWadeOwnzYou]

Nico's firing is imminent at this point regardless of what you hear. I'd be surprised he's still around by Chrismas.

[magee]

I asked a friend who works for the Mavericks about Nico Harrison and he thought Nico's job isn't going to make it to Christmas. Stein's one of if not the best source for Mavs news so I think it's very likely that Nico's seat is on fire right now

The ownership is hesitating to do it already because it reflects poorly on them too but Nico knew what he was doing ever since Adam Silver darkened the Mavs' doorstep with a mole hire and the fan backlash isn't dying down even though the NBA had Ernst and Young shift the ping pong balls in their favor in last draft

They have to fire Nico, the team needs to hit the reset button and blow it up but Nico can't justify doing that after putting his name on such a catastrophic trade because it would be admitting defeat

Watch them fire him on Christmas Eve.

[Capn'O]

Are we still focusing on the fall guy?

I mean, that kind of focus is what makes you a fall guy.

[Blame Rasho]

You know the ripple effects of this trade will last a decade. I can honestly see AD having a season ending injury before the end of the year and once that happens, what do we do with Irving before he gets into his diva self.

[DusterBuster]

This will go down as one of the greatest ownership failures ... maybe ever. He should have been fired on-the-freaking-spot the second he brought that trade to ownership for approval.

As much as we RIGHTLY **** on Harrison for this colossal roster mismanagement, Dumont should be taking every bit of heat that Niko did. Because he wasn't the face of the trade like Niko was, I feel like he's getting somewhat of a pass (tho clearly not entirely by the fans). One of two things happened with this trade, either Dumont gave Niko a blank check with zero oversight on roster decisions, or Dumont - in his role as governor - did have final say on all transactions (as it should be), then had the offer brought to his desk, and still signed off on it without hesitation.

Either scenario is damning, however, if the former scenario was true (just giving Niko carte blanche on roster decisions with no need to run deals by him), you could maybe chalk that up to the public as a new owner making a new owner mistake. Dumont would need to go on record and publicly throw Niko under the bus (which he rightfully deserves regardless of what happened behind the scenes), but ultimately fall somewhat on the sword himself for fans. Go and say that at the end of the day, it was his fault as governor to not have as much oversight of the franchise. He can say he was duped by someone who he thought was an expert and he trusted fully in at the time, but it was his fault for not being more involved in decisions as he should have been... ask for forgiveness and promise that that will never happen again as long as he's the Mavs Governor. That STILL might not be enough to absolve the situation, but it's at least a step in the right PR direction.

If the latter scenario is what happened, Dumont saw it and still approved it... I'm not sure there's any PR spin that could be made. I'm not even sure firing Niko would be enough and probably the only thing that might start to move the franchise past this would be the Adelson's replacing Dumont as Governor... but considering the family ties of all that ownership group... it's hard to see that ever happening.

I feel bad for Mavs fans, I really do. Going from Cuban, arguably a Top 5 franchise owner of my lifetime imo (some iffy HR stuff, but on-court production was hard to argue with) to whatever the **** messy ass ownership group the Adelson's are is a tough pill to swallow, even as an outsider looking in... that really sucks. They feel like they're gonna be a Gale Benson-esque ownership group based on the 2-ish years of experience we have to go off of.

[The Laker Kid]

After the Mavs fire Nico, I feel like he will be blacklisted from ever working in any other organisation/franchise in the NBA, which i think is somewhat unfair.

Agreed, I would like to see him working for the Lakers.

Fingers crossed!

Plot twist: He's already a Lakers employee for years. Your very own GM is probably an undercover Lakers employee as well.

[maverick_41]

That's absolute BS. Even bringing up trading a 25yo all NBA player had to come from several organizational conversations involving ownership.... Completely non sensible statement to call trading a leading money maker franchise player coming off an NBA finals appearance for a corporation coming from the owner wanting to do it a conspiracy theory.

A GM even bringing that up could get fired for that unless you knew the owner was down for it...... Guess what? We know for a fact he was down for it.

I don't believe a single GM in the NBA could have that much power to trade a Luka level talent at that age without the owner wanting to do it. Riley included. Which is why the owner was at the presser.

What is a conspiracy is why he did it and that could be a ton of things

I will quote myself from several months ago, when the trade was fresh:

I really think there's no need for conspiracy and league involvement:
- Nico full of himself after the Mavs went to the finals
- Nico owes his career to Kobe, and sees him as a model for how a professional athlete should behave
- Nico doesn't like Luka, as a persona and as a professional basketball player
- Nico grabbing more and more power as Cuban sold and was left out from all basketball operations
- Nico pushing out from the organization all Luka guys and circling himself of yes man
- Nico foolishly sharing his frustrations with his 'friend" Pelinka
- Nico big fan of Anthony Davis, with whom he has a long timed relationship, and wants him in particular
- Pelinka smelling the opportunity and starts playing Nico like a violin, to the point Nico thinks he's the one who suggested the trade
- Nico drinking more and more of his own koolaid
- The new owner is not a basketball person, without his own network of people to ask, and he doesn't even think about consulting with Cuban (they must have an awful relationship)
- Nico mentions the 'biggest contract of all time" to a guy who doesn't understand the CBA, explains him that Luka is a fat alcoholic, unlike the real legends who were working all the time (like Shaq)
- The owner trusts his basketball expert, who was the main driving force for the Mavs reaching the finals
- Pelinka makes sure the trade remains secret because reasons, uses all the info Nico shared with him over the years to negotiate the price down
- Nico very proud for being the most powerful person in the organization. More than Cuban and more than Luka, now.

No need for conspiracies.
All I see is a narcissist, power hungry, incompetent person in a perfect storm situation without proper checks and balances.
It sounds like a metaphor of the US as a whole, actually, lol.

it made no real sense for the owner to push to trade Luka. He was his money machine and Davis was goiing to be paid more than him.
Dumont for some reason trusted Nico, and Nico qas FOS.

Like I said in my previous post in this thread. It's all conspiracy theories as to why they trade Luka. But make no mistake the owner traded.

As a person who knows several wealthy people and how they oftentimes do business. It can often be personal. Again conspiracy time. But, it could be that Luka didn't want to go play golf with him.... Still saw Mark Cuban as his owner? So Patrick reduced Cubans status and when Luca didn't play ball and network with the owner... And he's also injured at the time... And he's also not playing defense.. And the overwhelming theory out of the finals was that they lost because Luka didn't play defense... Bye

Something always changes when there's new ownership for these sports teams. Sometimes his leadership. Coach and GM. Sometimes it's franchise player. This move fully fits that bill. For example in Boston they won a ring and now they've blown up their team and part due to the injury, but that was happening due to the tax anyways. In LA Jeannie is supposedly still the governor, but they're actively plotting to get rid of LeBron

Your last statement is absolutely correct. Patrick looks like this type of guy.

But even with this is mind we can't explain the modest return for Luka. OK, you need to make a deal with Lakers (because of some business part not related to basketball). At least ask to add Reaves on reasonable contract or more picks.

Sigh... We are discussing this absurd package for millionth time making new rounds in every thread.