The NBA world was shaken by the news of Luka Doncic being let go by the Dallas Mavericks. Milwaukee Bucks knows how Mavs fans feel now as they experienced that, too, when Ray Allen was out of nowhere traded after all he’s done for the team, even if he was still at his peak.
Jesus Shuttleworth was the savior the Milwaukee Bucks franchise was looking for when he was drafted by the team in 1996 as a fifth overall pick.
Before him, the team missed the playoffs for five straight seasons. It took him three more seasons to bring the Bucks to the postseason but the future looked bright and almost everybody bought in.
They now have a Big 3 in Allen, Sam Cassell, and Glenn Robinson.
In 2001, the Bucks reached the Eastern Conference finals although they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in a controversial series.
By 2003, he was traded to the Seattle Supersonics for Gary Payton and Desmond Mason. He was only 26 at that time. The Bucks fell apart since then. The trade is regarded as the worst in team history.
Ray Allen never understood why he was traded. Media reports said it was because of his bad relationship with his then coach George Karl.
The rift is something he was not aware of.
“The funny thing is, I never had any confrontation with George,” Allen said. “We never had arguments. It was always, ‘George doesn’t like you.’ I was hearing this from other people. Why? I think he didn’t like the way I was, the type of person I was.
“There was a Sports Illustrated article about me that said I wore a suit to games, and Karl said I cared more about being cool than being tough. Ultimately, he just didn’t like me.”
Ray Allen, Luka Doncic trade parallelism
Luka Doncic did for the Mavs what Allen did for the Bucks although the former did it slightly better. He came to the league in 2018 as a third overall pick. He reached the playoffs in his second.
The Mavs became a mainstay of the postseason since then except in 2022-2023 season.
The Mavs reached the NBA finals last year but lost to the Boston Celtics.
Doncic made Dallas relevant again since the prime years of Dirk Nowitzki.
Shockingly, the Mavs did not consider that. They traded Doncic yesterday to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis.
Doncic is only 25 years old.
Both Mavs and Bucks traded their stars who are very committed to their vision. They let go players who are still in their prime.
Mavs has a chance to better if they can win a championship soon, especially with the fact that AD is turning 32 years old soon.
Doncic can have a revenge career, too, if he can win multiple championship the reset of his career.
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