Luka Doncic, Mavs win despite Warriors setting record with most threes in game

Dereck Lively II on Luka Doncic: “In Madrid Luka is God, Luka is God. Like you think that there’s a lot of fans in America… No way. I’m one of his disciples. You just got to like look at what he’s doing, how he’s carrying himself. (…) When I get to Dallas he’s not there. I go through a whole training camp, like the summer league, preparing for summer league, after summer league and then working out to prepare for training camp to start the season. We’ve been playing five-on-five for weeks and Luka finally gets there, so what they do is we play five-on-five and they put me and Luka on the same team for the first time. That game I’m pretty sure the first plays were like four back-to-back lobs in a row and he’s throwing lobs and I’m like is that a lob, I’m just going to jump just because and then I catch it and finish it and I’m like ‘wow like he really put it like he puts it at the dot each time’. We never had a conversation, we never really played together and it was lob dunk, lob dunk full court, lob dunk, three, he’s going to look like he’s shooting it, throw a lob dunk and it was like that the whole season.” -via YouTube / December 14, 2024

Paul Pierce on Jimmy Butler: He can’t get the Rockets over to the top. He can get them a for sure spot in the playoffs but like, if I’m Jimmy and I’m looking to try to win it, probably you got to go to Golden State. Kevin Garnett: Golden State over the Mavericks? Pierce: He doesn’t fit with them. He doesn’t fit with Luka Doncic. -via YouTube / December 14, 2024

Dallas faces some issues in a potential Jimmy Butler trade. The Mavericks are hard-capped at the first apron (by virtue of the Klay Thompson sign-and-trade acquisition). In addition, the Mavs are only $386,752 under the first apron. That’s a pretty tight margin to work with. On the plus side, Dallas doesn’t have any aggregation restrictions. That’s good, because the only way they can make a deal is by stacking together a whole bunch of contracts. We’re assuming Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving are off-limits here, because why would you add Butler while moving one of your current stars? Proposed trade: Miami Heat acquire Daniel Gafford, Quentin Grimes, Maxi Kleber, Dwight Powell, P.J. Washington. Dallas Mavericks acquire Jimmy Butler. -via Spotrac.com / December 12, 2024