The Dallas Mavericks shocked the entire sports world to begin the month of February this year, announcing shortly after midnight that they were trading franchise player Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, receiving Lakers power forward Anthoney Davis in return.
The move outraged many, both in Dallas and across the NBA, with many calling for Nico Harrison’s head, wondering how he could make such a decision surrounding the player that is supposed to be the next NBA legend.
However, one player, Golden State Warriors power forward Draymond Green, is on Harrison’s side, and doesn’t exactly see what the fuss is about, even six months after it all went down.
Harrison’s reasoning he gave for dealing out the MVP candidate was Doncic’s work ethic and conditioning, or lack thereof.
Fast forward to now, and Doncic has lost over 30 pounds thanks to a gluten-free and low-sugar diet.
Green, a former NBA Defensive Player of the Year, believes that Doncic doesn’t take that initiative if he isn’t traded out of Dallas.
“Does Luka have that same fire if not traded from Dallas?” the forward asked Athlon Sports. “Nico can be right in his thinking and end up wrong in the end because he doesn’t play the game and Luka is one of the greatest talents we have seen,” he replied. “But it doesn’t just mean (expletive) on Nico either.”
And to pull more leverage to the side of Green and Harrison, Dan Woike of The Athletic wrote a report on Tuesday that regardless of whether he was in Dallas or not, Doncic already had made it a goal to lose weight before the 2025-26 season started.
Whichever way you look at it, whether you believe Harrison and the front office jumped the gun on trading Luka, or that the Slovenian star should’ve kickstarted his weight loss sooner, all can agree that how Doncic is looking now might finally land him an NBA MVP and could bring championship number 18 to the City of Angels.
