The Los Angeles Lakers had loads of causes to leap on the alternative to accumulate Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks when the prospect was provided to them. Proprietor Jeanie Buss, nonetheless, revealed that there was one massive and stunning motivation behind the deal from the Lakers’ perspective.
In an interview with NPR’s “Morning Edition,” Buss cited the Denver Nuggets as a giant motive why the Lakers felt that they needed to make a transfer. Buss identified that the Lakers had been eradicated by the Nuggets in back-to-back postseasons, and strongly steered that she thought the identical outcome would repeat itself except the Lakers made a giant transfer.
“We gave up rather a lot to get Luka Doncic,” Buss mentioned. “We’re blissful we have now him. We have now misplaced the final (two) years in a row to the Denver Nuggets within the playoffs, and we actually didn’t have something that was going to look completely different going into the playoffs once more.
“Anthony Davis was complaining about the place he was being performed and he wasn’t blissful. So I feel this was a optimistic for each groups. They acquired what they had been on the lookout for; we acquired what we had been on the lookout for.”
The Nuggets swept the Lakers within the Western Convention Finals in 2023, then beat Los Angeles in 5 video games within the first spherical in 2024. Denver followers had been definitely eager to remind the Lakers of their crew’s current mastery of them throughout the latter sequence.
On the time of the commerce, the Lakers sat fifth within the West, and confronted the very actual chance of squaring off with Denver once more within the first spherical. Since then, they’ve gotten scorching and at the moment sit second within the West, a stretch that included a 123-100 highway win over the Nuggets.
The Lakers additionally know that Doncic can anchor their crew for years to return, and don’t appear to share the Mavericks’ concerns about his fitness. That was definitely the massive motive for the commerce. Nonetheless, they clearly didn’t wish to journey up in opposition to the Nuggets once more, and evidently really feel far more assured now that they won’t.
