Kurtenbach: The Luka Dončić commerce has plunged the NBA into chaos. The Warriors have to take benefit

You shouldn’t want a reminder of Steph Curry’s greatness, however you acquired one late Saturday night time.

The largest and most surprising NBA commerce in latest reminiscence could have ramifications that shall be felt for many years.

It makes a press release once you commerce a perennial MVP candidate at 25 years previous.

For the Dallas Mavericks, a workforce that performed within the NBA Finals this previous June, the assertion was that they don’t belief Luka Dončić.

With a “supermax” $69-million-a-year contract extension looming in Dončić’s future and with well-known issues over his conditioning (maybe contributing to absences on the court docket), the Mavs determined to promote him for 50 cents on the greenback, choosing up Anthony Davis (that bastion of well being), a number of bit gamers, and one of many Lakers’ two tradable first-round picks.

Does this make the Lakers higher? Possibly. Positive, they now not have a rim protector, however they added one of many league’s brightest stars, who ought to (that’s the operative phrase right here) be getting into his peak.

Does this make the Mavericks higher? For the subsequent 12 months or two, maybe. They nonetheless have Kyrie Irving, in any case.

The state of affairs highlights two issues that pertain to the Warriors.

The primary is to by no means take Curry’s excellence — on or off the court docket — as a right.

Since Curry signed what turned out to be essentially the most team-friendly contract within the historical past of the NBA in 2012 (4 years, $44 million), the Dubs have by no means wanted to offer a second thought to paying him each penny he may presumably earn below the NBA’s collective bargaining settlement.

Even now, when Curry, on the profession decline and midway via what’s, in impact, a five-year, $278 million contract that runs till the tip of the 2026-27 season, there may be little doubt he’s price each penny.

Say what you’ll concerning the Warriors’ present standing. Heaven is aware of I’ve exhausted myself on that.

However the place would the Warriors be with out him?

Praying for lottery balls to bounce their approach in Could.

As a substitute, the Warriors can nonetheless fancy themselves “in it.”

And, as soon as once more, in case the severity of the state of affairs hasn’t sunk in simply but — the reigning Western Convention champion simply completely freaked out and traded away their franchise cornerstone with out a lot logical impetus.

They didn’t even trouble to buy him across the league. (The Warriors would have been in a position to make a aggressive provide.)

However Dallas’ incapacity to decide to Dončić is all of the extra motive for the Warriors to decide to Curry in methods past common wealth.

If a 25-year-old who’s five-times All-NBA — a participant who earlier than Saturday was thought-about untradable — isn’t price full dedication, then that bar is impossibly excessive.

Or, to place it one other approach, there’s no such factor as a “future” within the NBA if a participant like Dončić (for all his downsides) isn’t thought-about a participant price a max contract by an unquestionably profitable workforce.

(For all of the deserved skewering of the Mavericks for this deal, some deference must be supplied, too. They need to know Dončić higher than anybody, and their annoyance with him, significantly within the final 18 months, hasn’t precisely a close-kept secret.)

In the meantime, the Warriors are holding onto their “future” with a stage of preciousness that’s actively harming their current.

This brings us the second lesson of the Doncic commerce. It’s not a brand new one:

The Warriors are by no means going to land one other Steph Curry. No less than not within the subsequent decade or so.

And no, they’re not going to land a Dončić, both.

That’s simply not how the NBA works.

The Celtics and Lakers dominated the 80s and stunk within the 90s.

The Bulls dominated the 90s and stunk within the new millennium’s first decade. The Knicks didn’t even win a title in that period and have been attempting to achieve their stage of play for 25 years since.

How’d the Lakers do on the finish of the Kobe Bryant period? How’d the Spurs do after Tim Duncan retired?

This league is one among unbelievable highs and lows. Some groups can stave off the latter higher than others — the Lakers, it appears, are blessed by the basketball gods; whereas the Warmth have a superb program for sustained high quality — however there’s solely a lot one can do.

It’s finest to profit from Curry whereas he can nonetheless do what he’s doing.

The NBA commerce deadline is on Thursday. As of Sunday morning, the Warriors are 4 video games again of the No. 6 seed within the Western Convention.

Nobody is advocating for a commerce just like the Mavericks simply made — a rash, maybe even “desperate” transfer. Don’t toss 5 first-round picks onto the desk for Zion Williamson.

However in a world the place Dončić will be traded, there’s no motive to not be aggressive.

And there’s even much less of a motive to not maximize what time Curry has left.

Clearly, they don’t make superstars like him anymore.