Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
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What are prima donnas in business and sports?
This is Scott Becker from the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're joined today by David Pivnik, and we're going to discuss today prima donnas in business and sports and a lot more. David, I want to take you through really three topics at least. One is the Luka Doncic trade. We're going to talk sports today, mostly, so people that just want to listen to business and private equity, we're going to let you know right away. We're going to talk about Luka Doncic. I'd like to talk about the Eagles Chiefs. And then I'd also like to talk to you about Zach Levine and Jimmy Butler. People talk about the parts being greater than the sum. I want to talk about why some leaders... Some players, some business executives are so hard to build into teams. Let's start with your take on the Luka Doncic trade, your take on the Eagles Chiefs, and then let's talk about why some players are so hard to make teams better. David, what are your thoughts on the Luka Doncic, Anthony Davis trade, Lakers, Mavericks, big surprise to the league. What are your thoughts on this?
What was the impact of the Luka Doncic trade?
Yeah, I mean, the first thing is the last thing you said, big surprise. It's mostly the most shocking trade I can remember offhand, I don't think there's been very many trades that I can recall where a legitimate superstar was traded without any warning, without a demand for a trade, without a contract dispute that had been percolating. I mean, it came completely out of left field. And Luca is, you know, I think pretty clearly one of the five most marketable players in the league. So seeing a guy like that get traded, out of a market like Dallas is somewhat shocking, because that's usually a guy, a team like Dallas or Milwaukee with Yadis, you know, the guy you would build around and use to sell tickets.
I think the weirdest part of the trade is how Anthony Davis is getting treated. And I think your lead in here is sort of emblematic of that, where it took until the third or fourth time you mentioned the trade before you even said his name. And I kind of feel like Anthony Davis is being treated like he's Bill Cartwright. And I don't mean to have Bill Cartwright catching shots out here, but ultimately, you know, Anthony Davis is a legit star as well. One of the five or 10 best big men in the NBA might be one of the 10 best players, far better defensively. And he's frankly, I think a pretty damn good fit on Dallas. So I think it's an interesting deal more than anything else, because he came completely out of left field. I think it's great for the Lakers to Not that they need help attracting superstars, but this will allow them to transition seamlessly from LeBron to their next generation and keep Luka around and build around him for the next decade.
Talk about this, because there are people like Charles Barkley saying that this is actually going to work out better for Dallas than people are projecting because of the combination of Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis and that between the Supermax contract and some other reasons there are people in Dallas that wanted Luka gone. What's the reality of this? Because this seems such a strange thing. Luka is a top-five player, and some of the speculation is that Dallas management didn't love him. But what is the speculation on this?
There's a lot of speculation about how fit he was, whether they wanted to pay him, et cetera. I have no idea what's true or not. I will say seeing video and pictures of him over the last week after the trade, he looks to be the exact same size he's been at all points in time while in Dallas, which is to say he's been one of the best players in the NBA his entire career at seemingly the exact same size as Ed Dow. So I don't put a lot of stock in that. It's different than, for example, when Zion Williamson was out with injuries and there were a lot of pictures that surfaced of him where he was visibly heavier and it looked like he hadn't taken care of himself taking care of himself while injured. Luka, you know, to me, it looks like he's fit and that Dallas may have been making excuses, but I do think Charles Barkley's general premise is right.
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