Mark Cuban reveals that his star players Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis are fine together on the court, but have a dust-up relationship off the court.
The Dallas Mavericks are one of the teams with the best young talents in the league. With the 22-year-old Luka Doncic as their leader, the Mavericks’ future is in safe hands. The plan for the 2011 champions is for Doncic and his teammate Kristaps Porzingis to be the star duo helping the franchise win titles in the future.
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On the court, the two players have great chemistry and understand each other. However, it is off the court, that they aren’t the best of friends.
In a recent interview, Dallas owner Mark Cuban addressed the elephant in the room. He spoke about how Doncic and Porzingis share a “dust-up” relationship. On “105.3 The Fan”, Cuban revealed:
“On the court they are fine. That’s not to say there aren’t dust-ups, because there are.”
“Coaches coach, and coach (Rick Carlisle) kind of runs the show so everything gets worked out on the court. … (But) KP and Luka get along fine. It’s just that they’re different people. They like to do different things.”
“I’d compare Luka and Porzingis’ relationship to Jason Terry and Dirk Nowitzki”: Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban went on to compare Luka and Porzingis’ relationship to the former Mavericks Jason Terry and Dirk Nowitzki. Cuban revealed how the former champions too, were not fast friends and it did take them quite some time before doing anything together off the court. Cuban revealed:
“I’d compare it to Jet and Dirk… (Nowitzki and Terry) weren’t best friends at the beginning, but they grew to like each other and grew to be great friends and that’s just part of the process when you’ve got young kids who are growing up. It took forever before Dirk and Jet did anything off the court together. A long time.”
Mark Cuban on @1053thefan compared Luka and KP’s relationship to Dirk and Jason Terry’s: “They weren’t best friends at the beginning, but they grew to like each other and grew to be great friends and that’s just part of the process when you’ve got young kids who are growing up.”
— Callie Caplan (@CallieCaplan) April 22, 2021
Well, Mark Cuban is spending a huge sum of money on the two players. He wouldn’t want their off-court relationship, affect their game. While at the same time, if he wants the two of them to be in Mavericks’ future, the organisation would have to help the two become better friends.
Currently, their “differences off the court”, hasn’t been affecting the team. Mavericks are currently at the 7th spot of the Western Conference. With the same 32-26 record as the 6th seed Portland, Dallas would want to finish the season strong to avoid the play-in tournament.
