Jason Gallagher
Appearances
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
You just showed every other NBA player what you are, by the way, that you're trying to attract to your franchise. I mean, I am so hot about this for so many reasons. And every tweet that comes is just worse and worse. Somebody texted me, Luca had no idea and I didn't believe it. And then I saw Tim McMahon tweet the same thing.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
No, not a big fan of that one. I appreciate the – Hold on.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
Does that change anything? That doesn't really change much. But, you know, it's starting to come – it's really – you know, it's kind of unbelievable now that the Lakers have so many people that I like on that team now or that I'm tangentially related to on that team that I'm like – Rude for them. I mean, Dorian Finney Smith's over there.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
You know, I just I'm I'm really at this this place where it's so it goes so beyond what's what's going to what the product is even going to look like on the court. I just think I cannot believe like this is this is I mean, I'm a 38 year old.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
man, in this connection, this tie to this team goes back to a child and this sort of, you know, this sort of you're, you've sold this ethos that you, you know, there's a loyalty to the Dallas Mavericks. There's a stat. I tweeted this. There's a statue of Dirk Nowitzki outside of American airline center. And it says loyalty never fades away. And yeah,
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
And there's probably something to the Euro vibe and everything like that. That's what this fan feels connected to. And the idea that you traded him for Anthony Davis, you have just lost a lot of fans. I mean, everyone in my mentions is like, I'm out. I'm done. It would not stop me if there's a mutiny. I'm not even kidding. And I feel bad for the players on the team.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
I feel bad for the Klay Thompsons in the world that were like, oh, I wanted to play with Luka.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
I know. And that's what I mean, that you make this move and you don't have anything prepared. And somebody was like, you know, Nico gets fired because of this. Bro, are you – because of the magnitude of which this – This trade is – there's no way he's doing that unilaterally. There's no way he's just doing it on his own. You know what I mean?
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
There's zero, zero chance because it impacts so much more than what's on the court. It does. It does. And I'm telling you right now, somebody – I mean, all the prognosticating over why did they do this, blah, blah, blah. They didn't want to do the Supermax. Someone texted me, well, maybe they knew for a fact he was going to go to Miami 2026. Fine. Fine.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
This is the best team he's ever played with, and you have him for another two years. What did we do all this for? What did I watch Luka Doncic and Dwight Powell do pick and roll for three years for? For this? Like, what is the point? What is the point? And I don't know.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
What you do is you sit your ass down around a conference table and you sit Luca down and you say, hey, brother, this is going to suck for our fans. We cannot just do it. We have to have a full on plan. And. The quotes are so unbelievable that I was like, actually, like, did all of Twitter get hacked? Not just did Shams get hacked. Did everyone get hacked?
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
It's like, Luka was blindsided. Everybody was blindsided. And it's like, the Mavs called nobody else. Ah. Yes, rule number one when you have a very valuable asset is to sell it to the first bidder, right? Right, kids? If you want to learn something, here you go. I went live on Twitter and it was the worst content possible. I was just staring at my phone the whole time.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
And somebody in the comments was asking, is it possible – Yeah, it was the 2026 thing, and they were trying to come up with all of these explanations for why this could be, and it just kept coming back to, it still doesn't make sense. Is there a scenario where this makes sense to you, outsider looking in?
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
No, it doesn't. And again, I think that there's also, I know I keep banging this drum, but I just think there's a responsibility you have to your fans to not do something like this. Frankly, I mean, so I mentioned this on my live stream, too, that like you remember when Sam Presti had to blow some shit up and he wrote a letter in the Daily Oklahoman and he was very thoughtful about this.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
That's what you do when you have to set a bomb off in the middle of your organization. You think about the ramifications and you think about, oh, my God, when you have a sports team in your city, you have a responsibility to them. To just explain some of this stuff. But to say defense wins championships... That's so insane. Are you kidding me right now? Are you kidding me right now?
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
We just made the finals! We just made the finals! And the guy had, like, bandage on every limb. And Kyrie was nowhere to be found. And Derek Lively's a rookie! And Boston's awesome! Everything's set up perfect! And Boston's awesome! And they were healthy. What are we gonna do? You know? And it's like... The conspiracy theories are coming from left and right.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
I got my brother being like, is this the NBA wanting the Lakers to win? I'm like, bro, it's at that point where I'm like, I don't know. Probably not. But you know what I mean? Where you just go like... What do you mean they didn't call anyone else? You didn't call anyone else? Dude, when I go... When I gotta, like, shop for Nikes, I go see if I can get them for $5 cheaper somewhere.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
You go... You look other places.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
look at this from the maz perspective say oh kairi 80 pick and roll that's going to be something else how many years can you really expect i mean kairi's 33 bulging disc as we speak like what what are you talking about and it's like uh you know there are certain players that You ride, I don't want to say this, but you kind of ride into the sunset a little bit.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
And I'm not saying Luka is there, but he was that kind of player. He meant that much to Dallas, and he was on his way to being that kind of player. The situation you find, like the situation in Golden State, right? Yeah. JJ and I, I remember last year we talked about this because they were struggling last year, and I distinctly remember, like, this is a good problem, to be honest.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
This is the problem that every fan base hopes they have, which is we want a lot. We want so much with these players, with this player in particular, that it's going to be difficult to move on from him, and we might have to make the decision, do we owe it to our fans to keep that player around, or do we rebuild? Because of all of the winning we did with this guy, that's what's so hard.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
And I just go like, every fan base would love that. Oklahoma City, if they won with Jalen Chet and Shea, and in 12 years they're like, well, they're kind of old and they don't play like they used to, but that's a big problem to have. You know what I mean? I just am sitting there going like, You're looking at it objectively from a basketball standpoint.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
I'm glad to hear you say it doesn't make sense because it doesn't make sense to any fan. Usually my mentions is a cesspool of people being like, you're wrong about everything. They got your back on this one. This stuff. Not one person. I've not seen one that's like, oh, we're going to cook now.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
Yeah, and one of the things that I really – that hammers that point home for me and the stat that I always say is just more impressive than anything is the fact that he took two totally different teams to conference finals, totally different rosters. One of the things that – By the age of 25, yeah. By the age of 25 and one of the things I remember –
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
You know, JJ was hell just hell bent on saying was in season trades are not as impactful as people think they are. And he I remember he was trying to make this point that was like, yeah, the trade deadline's fun. But is it that that meaningful to.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
to uh nba finals in that season and he kind of went by season by season kind of went through every single trade and there's only i mean less than two that actually like significantly impacted the nba finals yeah uh that season and then what's funny is we published that video in like a month later dallas trades for gafford and pj and by all accounts you know
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
JJ's theory could have been right, but it wasn't in this case because of Luka Doncic, because that's the anchor to all of this. And he makes. he makes wings. He makes the spot of shooters look so much better than they probably actually are in some ways. Like he, he really like, there's a reason why I think PJ looks so much better when Luke is standing next to him.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
There's a reason why Dorian Finney Smith or whomever, uh, looked so much better with him next to him because he was an instant fucking get-out-the-pack, shake-it-up offense. Boom. Now you've got an offense that's going to compete and possibly, worst-case scenario, you're a playing team. How many guys can you just say that about? There's really like...
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
less than five that you can really just put anyone next to him and you're probably winning a lot of games.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
They didn't even make it to the next trade deadline. Because you're not... This is what I mean. It's like you're not bailing on Luka. You're actually bailing on your whole plan. Your whole plan. You're bailing on it. And...
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
It's like, you know, I don't know if you know Jason Concepcion, but he literally just keeps texting me his thought and then it always follows up with, but it simply doesn't make sense. He keeps saying there has to be something I'm missing. There has to be more. There has got to be more coming out in the next week because none of it makes sense. It doesn't make any sense why you wouldn't shop him.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
It doesn't make sense why you would drop this news like this. It doesn't make sense that you wouldn't tell him. Like now we're in this scenario where some friends are like, I hope Adam Silver blocks the trade. And it's like, what? You hope Luca comes back to a team that he knows would want to trade him? Like, what are you talking about? And it's funny.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
It's like if Adam Silver did block the trade, do you think Dallas would be getting something better? Maybe not, but there's probably more picks.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
I know. He should be. I mean, he should be one of those. And I think, you know, I know that this is the Athletics podcast and you're an objective journalist, but, you know, Shea is your favorite player? Is that fair? Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. If the Thunder traded Shea, like...
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
the impact would be so... This actually reminds me a little bit of Kevin Durant leaving the Thunder in the kind of impactful kind of way where it goes, it's so weird. It's so anti-sports. It's so anti-anything you really understand as a fan. Now, his personal reasons aside, but you know what I mean. It was that impactful where you go, I don't get it.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
If the Thunder traded Shea, your first question actually wouldn't be, would they get back? It would be... wait, why would they do that to their, to us? Like that's kind of, that's the natural reaction for Mavs fans. You go, why would you do this to us? And then you hope, well, I hope like the, the, the weird, the, the series of events was Luca was traded. Well, it must be hacked. Sean's right.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
Well, he wasn't hacked. Okay. Well, Luca must've asked out. That was my second thing. That was like, Luca must've asked out Luca. Then I get the texts from somebody that's like, he had no idea. Great. And then I see it confirmed by Tim McMahon. Great. OK, so they blindsided him. And you just keep going down the list and every every little tree that's like, could it have been a good thing?
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
It's always the worst thing. It just keeps going down. It's like the worst outcome. Every time you you meet that fence in the in the road, it's like, what? Man, I'm like, I was going to go to bed early tonight, bro. You have no idea. I was going to have a good night. At the very minimum, how do you not get the other pick from the Lakers? That's what somebody just texted me.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
How do you not get the other pick?
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
I'm not going to say yes to the first bidder.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
Thanks for asking me on. I hope this wasn't too incoherent.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
Hi. Hello. I was drinking wine and browsing YouTube, specifically a YouTube channel called Pitch Meetings, which I enjoy very much. It's about movie criticism, and it's very funny. So a nice, relaxing Saturday, it sounds like. Yeah, and I actually want to cut you off. So first off, you introduced me as a Mavs fan, and that is very much in question right now. Oh, no. What's the phrase?
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
Is it thunder up? Is that the phrase that we're... Oh, yeah.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
I'm thinking about it. I just got a text from a nice mayor that's like, come on over, buddy. Really? Listen, guys. I really want to get this off my chest at the top because there's a lot to discuss with regards to basketball and the explanations that the Mavs gave after the trade.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
And I just want to say that I sincerely believe that this is such a bad trade, specifically when it comes to how you deal with your own fans. I think there's going to be a mutiny. I actually believe it. It would not shock me if boos are raining down in Dallas. Because this is not something you do with the player that you've built your entire franchise identity around.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
Some people have asked me, what would you take for Luka? And it's really not even the point. I don't care if his conditioning is bad. I don't care if you're concerned about his defense. You decided to build your entire franchise fan base around this one guy and everybody in Dallas loves him, loved him, like loved him and you traded him away.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
You traded away a guy like this and you didn't make it known that he was available. You traded him away for not really much of a future, I would say. And for a guy who is also kind of made of glass, if you're actually concerned about like whatever. So there's this like just it's just a cascading gap. like just questions and stuff that doesn't make sense.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
And I've really started to consider, is this the worst trade, at least in modern NBA history? I think so, because of all of it that goes into it. He is in his prime. He is a generational talent. He is, by what he's already accomplished— He is in that rarefied air. And this is the difference between him and Shay. Love Shay. I know you guys are Thunder guys.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
But there is a difference because based on what Luca has already accomplished. He could. It wasn't out of the question for him to play so well that he's in a top 10 all time discussion. You know, he he was putting up those numbers. Don't just trade that away and blame it on defense wins championships. Do you know what franchise you're talking to, guys?
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
This is a franchise that won a championship with Dirk DeWitzki. Are you kidding me? This is what we built our entire – this is what fans have been clamoring about forever. This is why fans say he's better than Kevin Garnett because defense kind of wins championships. But you know what really wins championships? Generational offensive talent. That's what wins championships.
The Athletic NBA Daily
LUKA DONCIC TRADED TO THE LAKERS EMERGENCY POD
And then you surround that talent with whatever you need to do to get it done. But that is your biggest cheat code. That is your biggest X factor. And the idea – that you would blame it on defense is so absurd. And even if you're concerned about the conditioning, you still owe the fan base so much more than to trade him out of nowhere, to trade him without warning.