The Celtics have officially buried Luka, the Mavs, and Anthony Davis’ dad

In a single day, we noticed one of many, if not THE, largest commerce in NBA historical past go down when the Dallas Mavericks despatched Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis.

I sadly wasn’t awake when every thing went down, however did spend an hour scrolling by Twitter and studying your complete newsbreak expertise this morning. This commerce was so loopy that it had folks considering that ESPN’s Shams Charania had his account hacked.

Within the second, I’m positive that it felt extra believable {that a} hacker had had their method with Shams’ account reasonably than this video-game commerce being legit. Alas, we’re right here and there’s a blockbuster deal to dissect.

Now, you is likely to be saying to your self, “Sam, you large dumb fool, that is CelticsBlog. Why are we dissecting a Lakers-Mavs commerce?”

Effectively, it’s as a result of from a Celtics perspective, that is completely hilarious.

Firstly, the Luka Doncic version of the Dallas Mavericks will perpetually be buried within the Boston Celtics cemetery after final season’s NBA Finals.

Boston made an instance out of Dallas again in June. They did so largely by profiting from Doncic’s defensive shortcomings and persistently focusing on him on that aspect of the ball.

They did it so aggressively in Sport 3 of the Finals that Luka wound up fouling out halfway by the fourth quarter.

The perfect a part of him fouling out that night time was that there was authentic discourse about whether or not or not Doncic being on the bench for the ultimate 5 minutes would truly be a great factor for the Mavs. Boston nonetheless wound up profitable the sport, however it was a sweat down the stretch.

This was extra than simply the Cs exploiting a weak level. It was extra like they put collectively a 20-slide PowerPoint presentation for Dallas normal supervisor Nico Harrison, explaining why a participant who’s so defensively inept can not lead a championship group.

That presentation should’ve been embedded deep into Harrison’s mind for the final eight months, it appears. Harrison fired just a few photographs on the Slovenian’s protection as he shipped him out the door.

In the meantime, the Lakers simply, actually, traded away their All-Defensive large man for a generational offensive expertise who doesn’t defend. To not point out that ESPN’s Tim MacMahon cited Doncic’s extreme weight, which he says hit 270 kilos, as reasoning why the Mavs didn’t really feel comfy providing him a supermax contract down the road.

Now L.A. goes to roll out a lineup of Doncic, a 40-year-old LeBron James, and the boys. It’ll be a defensive monstrosity at Crypto.com Area.

I can’t wait.

I’m simply sitting right here serious about that first time that LeBron shoots of a passive aggressive tweet about Doncic’s health or inevitably throws him beneath the bus throughout a postgame scrum. It’s going to feed households, as they are saying.

Don’t get me mistaken. The Lakers completely fleeced Dallas right here. They obtained a generational participant who’s 25 years outdated whereas solely giving up a 31-year-old Anthony Davis and a first-round choose (plus some filler guys).

There actually isn’t any higher franchise at simply having famous person gamers fall immediately into their lap. It’s how the Lakers have remained related by so many alternative eras.

Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, Pau Gasol, LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and now Luka Doncic have all principally confirmed as much as the Discussion board or Staples Middle able to obtain their purple and gold uniforms. They’ve made a historical past out of “stealing different group’s gamers,” as the good Invoice Burr would say.

They plied Davis away from the New Orleans Pelicans nearly six years in the past (wow), buying and selling a package deal of younger gamers and picks to the Huge Simple for the famous person large man.

What a time 2019 was. The Davis sweepstakes hijacked a lot of the 2018-19 season with the Lakers and Celtics being the 2 potential touchdown spots for The Forehead.

There was buzz that the superstars on each groups, LeBron in L.A. and Kyrie Irving in Boston, needed to group up with the previous No. 1 general choose.

Throughout Davis’ last months in New Orleans, his father weighed in on the place he’d wish to see his son play subsequent. Anthony Davis Sr. took the chance to clarify how he would by no means need his son to play for the large dangerous Celtics due to the best way that they traded away Isaiah Thomas after he’d left all of it out on the parquet (no debating that this wasn’t probably the most morally sound transfer).

Davis Sr. needed to see his son play for a pleasant loyal franchise just like the Lakers.

I ponder what he thinks of the Mavericks and their loyalty.

No less than AD will get to play together with his good buddy Kyrie in Dallas. Curiously sufficient, Danny Ainge helped unite the 2 all the years after Irving’s time in Boston. Ainge helped to facilitate the Lakers-Mavs commerce by taking again Jalen Hood-Schifino and two second-round picks.

Luka was already extraordinarily unlikable with all of his whining and complaining throughout video games. Now that he’ll be taking part in for the Lakers, it’ll be past enjoyable to root towards all 270 kilos of him.