Newly minted Los Angeles Laker Luka Doncic played his first game against his former team—the Dallas Mavericks—on Tuesday night, and he handled it pretty dang well, all things considered. Rather than annoyingly puff his chest or give his ex-teammates the cold shoulder (though he did stare down the Mavs bench a few times), Doncic let his performance speak for itself, racking up a gorgeous triple-double with 19 points, 15 rebounds, and 12 assists.
It was, in every sense, a revenge game. And the 25-year-old superstar played it well after the fact, too, declining, whether intentionally or not, to elaborate on his relief that the contest was over while gracefully answering questions regarding closure with his former team.
One bystander impressed by such decorum happens to be fellow league great and NBA analyst Shaquille O'Neal, who said that, had the general manager who shockingly traded him been watching on the sidelines during warm-ups—as was the case with Doncic and Mavs general manager Nico Harrison on Tuesday—he would have had a much different, much more bitter reaction.
"I would have gave him some vulgar choice words," O'Neal said of his actions in this hypothetical situation.
"I've always said when you handle business, I would like business to be handled like business. To trade a man without his knowledge when he thought he was going to be like a Dirk Nowitzki and be the face of the team, that's not really good business. So I would've given [Harrison] some vulgar choice words, I would have tried to at least go for 50, and then we move on from that. But the fact that Luka's still laughing and clowning around with teammates, he's not [as] mad as we think he is."
"I'm not talking to nobody on that franchise," O'Neal went on. "Because my thing is Jason Kidd, you knew. Mark Cuban, you knew. Dirk Nowitzki, you knew. I'm not talking to nobody in Dallas."
Shaq noted that yes, none of those individuals actually did know—the belief right now is that just Harrison and Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka were clued in—but if he were Doncic, he would tell himself otherwise to "fuel my anger."
Watch that below:
Shaq explains what he would do if he was Luka.
— Showtime Luka (@showtimeluka) February 26, 2025
“I’m not talking to nobody in that franchise, Jason Kidd you knew, Mark Cuban you knew, I’m not talking to nobody in Dallas” pic.twitter.com/EZGNu2AoBX
The Lakers will travel to play again Dallas on Wednesday, April 9, so we'll see if Doncic's attitude toward his former team changes by then.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Shaq Believes Luka Doncic Isn't Being Nearly Petty Enough Toward the Mavericks.
