Mavs Trade of Luka Doncic a ‘Storyline’ for Struggling ESPN Gossips

Despite the Dallas Mavericks re-signing Kyrie Irving and improving their roster on the margins, ESPN is already looking to manufacture drama for next season’s trade deadline by gossiping about a Luka Doncic trade.

No matter what the Dallas Mavericks do to improve their roster, there will always be harsh critics at every turn, some of them gossiping that four-time All-NBA First-Teamer Luka Doncic will eventually become disgruntled enough to force his way out of Big D with a trade.

But somewhere at ESPN, shouldn’t there be facts that advance “gossip” into “news”?

After ESPN’s Brian Windhorst spent a lot of his summer talking about ways Kyrie Irving would exit Dallas, the star re-signed with the Mavs on the first day of free agency for three years and $126 million. … just as was planned all along.

Now, another ESPN personality is predicting Dallas drama, insisting Doncic “could” demand a trade.

“Luka Doncic,” Kendra Andrews wrote on which player would become a big storyline at next season’s February trade deadline.

From Andrews: “He is six years in, he missed the playoffs last season and the Mavs haven't made any moves to drastically improve so far this offseason. Morale was so low by the end of last season -- particularly in how the team decided to handle Doncic's final game -- that he could decide he wants to see what else is out there.”

Where did Andrews get this incendiary information? Is it really information at all? First of all, caring about how the Mavs tanked the last two games of last season is ancient history as Dallas ended up keeping its top-10 pick, and then turned it into Dereck Lively II and OMax Prosper while getting off Davis Bertans’ $17 million contract. Seth Curry and Dante Exum are also signed.

Those count as “moves.” As does the Kyrie keep. As will the Mavs transactions to come.

Doncic wasn’t happy with the tank decision in real time; but we don’t need to report that now … because we already did so, also in real time. Luka eventually agreed with the Mavs decision (does ESPN not know this?) and wouldn’t you know it, it turned out being better for the franchise not only in the immediate future, but the long-term future as well. 

By the way: Irving didn’t necessarily like the decision to tank either, but that didn’t keep him from re-signing with the Mavs on a three-year deal.

Every single person who paid attention to Dallas last season knew it needed an injection of talent. Winning those last two games and losing that top-10 pick would have been a nightmare for the Mavs.

Given how limited the Mavs were outside of Doncic and Irving’s production at the end of last season — save for maybe Jaden Hardy, who got an uptick in minutes — we’d again argue that adding Lively, Prosper via the draft, signing elite 3-point shooter Curry and potentially signing two-time All-Defensive Second Team player Matisse Thybulle counts as “drastically improving” a team that went 26-29 in a league-high 55 clutch games played last year.

And for the people thinking Doncic might ask for a trade due to the Irving stuff? That’s not based on fact; Doncic both gave his stamp of approval for last season’s trade but also pushed for re-signing Irving - even with the Mavs’ playoff-less struggles.

Doncic is a year removed from helping Dallas to the Western Conference Finals. He has his supermax contract. He has his co-star in Irving. He has his front office being proactive to improve the roster around him. The 24-year-old phenom has so much at his fingertips.

There is zero indication that Luka will want out; he’s often talked of wanting to follow Dirk Nowitzki’s “Mav for Life” path. But … we will give the network this: The NBA is a never-say-never world, not unlike it is right now at ESPN, where the “Bloodbath in Bristol” is seeing good media people getting fired. That sucks. We’re empathetic. But not even that awful turn of events excuses awful reporting.

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