It’s been over seventy days since it happened, yet no one — neither the experts nor fans — have been able to come up with a convincing reason for why the Mavericks traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. Fans aren’t buying the official line that the trade was done to shore up their defense.
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Most believe that for a team to trade away a generational talent like Doncic, there must have been much deeper reasons — cracks in the very foundation of the team. In retrospect, and with the benefit of hindsight, we can recount a few moments that could’ve resulted in a fracture forming.
After the Dallas Mavericks won the Western Conference Finals in 2024 and advanced to the NBA Finals for the first time since they won their lone championship (2011), Luka was seen drinking a beer, only to have assistant GM Michael Finley rip it out of his hands. Social media had fun with it, but insiders were not pleased. The moment takes on new meaning now.
Victory should be celebrated, and with the massive usage and contributions Luka provided for that team, denying him a beer seemed not just cruel, but completely unnecessary as well. It seemed like a display of power that the front office had over him, instead of the collaborative teamwork that’s behind any good franchise and its star.
The Mavs appeared to have tried some unofficial damage control, with leaked videos and reports suggesting the team had concerns about Luka’s health given his beer drinking and hookah-smoking habits. But Gil Arenas recently mocked the Mavs for their folly when the Slovenian put on a masterclass against the Timberwolves.
Instead, we got what we got. GM Nico Harrison tried to prove that he was smarter than everyone else in the room and made one of the most baffling trades the NBA has ever seen. That’s blown up in his face, now that the Mavs have missed the playoffs outright.
Stephen Jackson, Vernon Maxwell, and Matt Barnes were all players who had similar fights with the front offices of the teams they joined, although none were ever at Luka’s level. Jackson beefed with the San Antonio Spurs for his whole first tenure there. Maxwell requested to be cut from the Houston Rockets even after winning two rings as a starter. Matt Barnes is Matt Barnes.
As part of an episode of All the Smoke, the three controversial players eventually got to the topic of how ridiculous it was to police Luka drinking one beer.
Maxwell started off, recalling his old adventures of post-match celebrations. He shared how he used to be out till 4:30/5 AM regularly, and smoke and drink all the time. He would then force himself to get to shootarounds on game days, and somehow still manage to play the full season of 82 games multiple times in his career.
Stak added his stories of how things used to be during his time in the league. Listening to them and recalling his own memories, Barnes expressed how surprised he was when the media and the Mavs made a fuss about Luka drinking a beer.
“That’s why I said, when they were tripping about Luka drinking beers, if you really knew what motherf*****s were doing in the league, that’s why I know you don’t know anything about this game.” Barnes started.
“You had the whole rotation drinking out [of] the bottle,” added Jackson. Maxwell finally joined in, jokingly saying, “I used to try to drink all the beers in the locker room.”
The NBA was absolutely ridiculous back in the day. The drug culture that defined the 80s and 90s spread its shadow even on championship-winning teams. Spencer Haywood was a starter on the Showtime Lakers while he was addicted to crack!
In comparison, it seems ridiculous to complain over a single beer. If the Mavericks had a chance to do it all over again, perhaps things would be the other way round. Luka would still be there, and perhaps Nico Harrison might have had to find a new home somewhere else.
