Luka Doncic was ejected after picking up a second technical foul against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night, despite some pretty convincing evidence that he was swearing at a verbose fan and not a member of the officiating crew. This seems pretty unfair but it's also worth pointing out that Doncic picked up his first tech of the night by swearing at said official, so there's reasonable cause for confusion.
After a night and early morning filled with some pretty strong takes about the grave injustice of it all, ESPN NBA insider Brian Windhorst hopped on Get Up and said some clear-headed things that other people don't want to hear. Essentially, yeah, that was a miscarriage of justice but Doncic bears some blame for doing the very thing he was assumed to have been doing already in the game. Which can happen when a player provides as much real-time feedback to officials as Doncic helpfully supplies.
"The problem is, he wasn't ejected just because of that," Windhorst explained. "He was ejected because he previously got a technical for profanely cursing at this exact same official. And the reason that the officials assumed that he was cursing them out is because Luka curses out officials almost on a nightly basis."
.@WindhorstESPN on Luka's ejection in the fourth quarter of Lakers-Thunder.
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) April 9, 2025
"He continues to have problems with this sort of stuff. ... The Lakers [have] every right to be upset about this, but Luka bears a lot of this responsibility." pic.twitter.com/uuIC1ic0ve
"It went totally sideways for the Lakers after this, probably materially impacted the outcome of the game," Windhorst added. "When that happened on what seems to be a misunderstanding, it's extremely frustrating but Luka heavily contributes to allowing this to happen by his behavior over the course of the last decade. He continues to have problems with this kind of stuff and continues to do the same thing. The Lakers have every right to be upset about this but Luka bears a lot of this responsibility."
All of that seems fair. Even if the overall situation wasn't entirely fair. There's a fail-safe way to stop any risk of getting a technical foul but Doncic is simply not going to employ that strategy. So every now and again there might be a miscommunication.
More NBA on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Brian Windhorst Offers Refreshing Take on Luka Doncic Controversy.
