Luka Doncic isn’t the biggest fan of Dallas Mavericks GM Nico Harrison, but it appears he doesn’t have much love for head coach Jason Kidd now, either. According to Matej Petek, Doncic hugged all his former teammates and even assistant coaches after the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Mavericks 107-99, but he didn’t even look at Kidd.
“Luka hugged every Mavs player after the game, every assistant coach, didn’t even look at Kidd… he knows.”
Here is the clip of Doncic hugging Mavericks players and some staff members. You can’t see him having any contact whatsoever with Kidd in it.
One by one, every Mavericks player and staff comes to congratulate and hug Luka Doncic. pic.twitter.com/kaEJwHizLL
— MrBuckBuck (@MrBuckBuckNBA) February 26, 2025
Now, Doncic could have embraced Kidd off-screen, but it doesn’t appear as if they did anything of that sort on the court. There could be some bad blood here, and at first, you didn’t think there would be any reason for that.
Kidd stated he had only been informed about the Doncic trade at the last minute, and Harrison had also revealed that he hadn’t consulted with his head coach on the matter. There would have been no reason to doubt their claims, but former Golden State Warriors GM Bob Myers stated on NBA Today prior to the trade deadline that Kidd had to have had an idea about the deal.
“Not only Nico, the ownership weighed in, Jason Kidd, I don’t know, they say he didn’t know, I’m sure he had an idea,” Myers said. “… Jason Kidd has an idea of what’s going on around there; he’s the coach. Of the powers that be, they looked at each other and said we don’t think he can get us there.”
Kidd has repeatedly denied having any knowledge regarding this, but if Doncic has heard otherwise, it would make sense for him to be a bit upset.
It wasn’t just the lack of interaction between these two during the postgame that raised eyebrows either, as Kidd didn’t even look at Doncic when he was standing in front of him during the game.
Kidd later looked toward Doncic, but only after the Lakers star had started looking elsewhere.
All this sure is quite interesting. Doncic would finish his first game against the Mavericks with 19 points (6-17 FG), 15 rebounds, 12 assists, three steals, and two blocks. It wasn’t as incredible a performance as many expected, but the Slovenian still played well. Kidd was asked about Doncic’s play postgame and was complimentary.
“I thought he picked his spots,” Kidd said. “He was able to find his teammates. He was Luka. Drove it, made plays, and then also finished. Probably had some looks that normally goes down for him, but he fills up the stat sheet like no other player. I think he had a triple-double. Again, he can find his teammates, and his teammates delivered tonight.”
While Kidd wasn’t interested in showering an adversary with too much praise, that wasn’t the case for Doncic. He spoke glowingly of Kyrie Irving and the rest of his former teammates postgame.
“Kyrie is my Hermano,” Doncic said. “We got beyond basketball. It was good to see those guys. We went to wars together, and it was really fun to see them all.”
Irving showed love to Doncic after the game, too, and it’s great that their relationship hasn’t cracked. It’s just a pity that we won’t get to see them dominate on the court together any longer.
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