Doncic to the Lakers: Kidd and Harrison justify 'dumbest trade ever'

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Under-fire Mavericks GM Nico Harrison and coach Jason Kidd discuss Luka Doncic's stunning trade to the Lakers.

Transcript

00:00It is part of the business. It is a little shocking, but like, in a sense, we have to push forward.

00:06J.K. and I, we've had a vision and a culture that we want to create since we've been here.

00:10Defense wins championships.

00:12There's some unique things about his contract that we had to pay attention to.

00:17You know, there's other teams that were loading up, you know, that he was going to have,

00:21he was going to be able to decide and make his own decision at some point of whether he wants to be here or not,

00:25whether we wanted Super Max in or not, or whether he wants to opt out.

00:29I think we had to take all that into consideration and feel like we got out in front of what could have been a tumultuous summer.

00:35Luca, when I first came here, you know, excited about the opportunity to coach an upcoming star who became a megastar.

00:46And I was just blessed to have that opportunity to coach him.

00:49But when you look at the vision of the team and what Nico wants to build, I truly support that.

00:56Rob and I were able to have, you know, really intense conversations over the course of, you know, three or four weeks.

01:03It started out as a coffee that, you know, was more, hey, would you ever, I don't know, would I?

01:09Let me think, you know, and then it built upon that.

01:12And, you know, we kept it between us.

01:15We had to, we had to keep it tight.

01:16I don't do anything that's scary.

01:19I think everything that we do, we put a lot of work into it.

01:22We study it and we restudy it and we go back.

01:25We understand the magnitude of it.

01:26So the easiest thing for me to do is do nothing.

01:29And everyone would praise me for doing nothing.

01:31But we really believe in it.

01:33And time will tell if I'm right.

01:34I'm not going to talk bad about any players like that.

01:37I mean, that's not going to do, you know, us or me any good.

01:41I just say there's levels to it.

01:43And there's people that fit the culture and there's people that come in and add to the culture.

01:47And those are two distinct things.

01:48We talk about Luka in the seven years with the Mavs.

01:52He's beloved and to be able to watch it up close by the city of Dallas, he's a global icon.

01:58I think my initial reaction was it came from a fake account.

02:01Is this a joke?

02:02Like, is this trade real?

02:03Is this a joke?

02:04I can't even imagine why they did this.

02:06It feels like they just blew up the team.

02:07It makes me nauseous.

02:08It makes me nauseous.

02:09For me, it's one of those things, it's just, why?

02:12Why?

02:13One of the dumbest, most ridiculous trades I could imagine.

02:17It just feels like we were robbed.

02:19I'm sorry they're frustrated, but it's something that we believe in as an organization.

02:25It's going to make us better.

02:26We believe that it sets us up to win, not only now, but also in the future.

02:30And when we win, I believe the frustration will go away.

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