Dallas Mavericks at Los Angeles Lakers: This is not ‘just basketball’ for Luka Doncic
Luka Doncic once scored 73 points in a game, now imagine what he will do when he’s fully vested in an outcome against some team other than the Atlanta Hawks, and he’s mad, like a scorned lover.
On Tuesday night when the Luka’s Lakers host the Dallas Mavericks, 173 points feels possible.
Luka going for 173 is no more ridiculous than the Mavericks trading him, which needs to be said actually did happen.
The former Mavericks’ All-Star will play against his old team on Tuesday in a nationally televised game on TNT for the first time since he was traded to the Lakers, a deal that re-set the entire NBA world, and still doesn’t quite seem real.
Doncic’s former teammate, Dirk Nowitzki, recently captured the feelings of Mavericks fans when he said, “I’ll never be a Lakers fan but I’ll always be a Luka fan.”
Nowitzki made the comments over the weekend in Dallas at KTCK The Ticket’s annual “Ticketstock” convention.
Part of the grieving process includes watching Luka, wearing the Lakers purple and gold, play the Mavericks this year. The Mavericks other game against the Lakers this season is at home, on April 9. Because that will be the final week of the regular season, there is a decent chance Luka may not even play that game at the American Airlines Center.
Players, coaches, GMs and the rest all move on, for various reasons, but this departure is one that will take far longer to get over for Mavericks fans. For Doncic, too.
Doncic was as surprised as the rest of the world when he was traded; he had no interest in playing for another team, a point he’s made clear. He wanted to be Dirk, who spent his entire 21-year career with the Mavs, and has a statue outside of the arena.
Without Mark Cuban running the Mavericks, the relationship between Doncic and the new leadership group wasn’t the same. Despite his talent, he was deemed expendable.
As such, Luka will take this matchup personally for as long as Harrison is the team’s GM, and Patrick Dumont owns the franchise. They will be No. 1 and No. 2 on Doncic’s poop-list.
It’s just basketball. It’s a business. What Dumont and Harrison did was hurtful to Doncic.
Fully expect him to lash out on the court, and look to punish his former team on the floor every time he has the ball in his hands. All of the necessary components are there for this to be an ugly night for the Mavs.
All of their top centers - Anthony Davis, Derek Lively and Daniel Gafford - are out with injury. Forward/center Dwight Powell and Caleb Martin were out for their most recent game, a blowout loss on Sunday at Golden State.
The Mavs’ best chance against Doncic is that he becomes an emotional wreck, and is a series of missed shots and turnovers.
He has appeared in four games as a Laker, and all signs point to a player who is improving since he was activated from the injured list, where he spent more than a month because of a calf injury. In the Lakers’ 23-point win against Denver on Feb. 22, he scored 32 points with 10 rebounds, seven assists and four steals.
The Lakers are not a complete team; they badly need a center, but any idea that Doncic was not going to be able to “play with” LeBron James was retired just minutes into their time together on the floor as teammates. Great players like this figure it out.
Evaluating the Mavericks while Davis sits on the bench nursing another injury is impossible. If/when the Mavericks feature a healthy lineup - which may never happen - they are built for a deep playoff run this spring.
Davis gives them one of the best, if not the best, defender at the rim in the Western Conference, and his ability to score spaces the floor for Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson.
AD won’t be on the floor on Tuesday night for a game that feels surreal: Luka and his Lakers will host the Dallas Mavericks.
This story was originally published February 24, 2025 at 4:15 PM.
