Was Luka’s rehab decision the final straw for Nico Harrison?

KRLD-FM / 105.3 The Fan

A report from The Athletic discussed the possible internal issues that led to Luka Dončić being traded by the Dallas Mavericks. Bobby breaks down how GM Nico Harrison's vision clashed with Luka’s approach, and why and why Patrick Dumont supported the move. The apparent nail in the coffin was when Luka skipped a road trip to rehab from his injury, which raised questions about his maturity & work ethic. This caused the Mavericks to make a decision that stunned the NBA.

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00:00in the process of it you start to understand a little bit more of

00:17the things that pushed nico harrison to or didn't push him the things nico harrison pushed for

00:24uh to move on from luka donchich and some of the fallout from that and gives us a better look

00:29at patrick dumont and how things have come together there for him uh when the dallas mavericks left

00:37for the longest road trip of their season in late january the team's franchise player wasn't with

00:40them luka donchich had suffered a calf strain in a game on christmas day and still wasn't right

00:45more than a month later the sliding mavericks wanted donchich to continue his rehabilitation

00:49around the team during their five game 10-day road trip but donchich preferred to stay home

00:55and work with his medical experts front office officials tried to communicate with donchich

00:59about a plan to get him back on the court but discussions between the two sides were spotty

01:03donchich believed he had suffered the calf strain by trying to come back from a previous injury too

01:07soon his group decided it didn't make sense for him to be with the team not only not only would

01:12plane rides invite a possible setback but he would also be able to maximize his workouts in dallas

01:17rather than going from city to city during the trip the decision frustrated team executives according

01:22to league sources and it wasn't the first time the superstar in the organization had clashed so

01:25one of the things they talk about here is this sort of thing that happened in the past and didn't

01:29matter because mark cuban always had his back and so disagreements were never really disagreements

01:35um but this basically became the final nail in the coffin for nico going i'm trading him

01:41just the fact that he that he didn't want to go on the road trips while he was rehabbing from an

01:46injury he thought it was more efficient to stay back in dallas to rehab it so how common is it to go on

01:51the road trips then i mean do we i don't know but if you have a strained calf i completely see why

01:55not wanting to jump on a plane every other day and wanting to just focus on rehab in one specific

02:00spot i could see how people think we'll get back faster if we do it this way rather than jumping

02:07around and doing all the different travel this seems like an even this is once more another thing

02:10that shows they're stupid they don't know what the hell they're doing over there

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