The Lakers’ superstar Luka Doncic recently went viral for his heated exchange with the Magic’s center Goga Bitadze, which led to his being assessed his 16th technical foul of the season, as the officials awarded double-technicals at the time.
Subsequently, Doncic justified his actions by saying that Bitadze cursed at his whole family, which the Georgian big man later denied.
While the technical foul and the resulting suspension were eventually rescinded for Doncic, a new video has surfaced on the internet that shows that the Slovenian superstar may not have fully clean hands in this matter as well.
A famous social media lip reader, ‘Legendz Productions,’ released a video on YouTube and X in which the admin broke down credible footage suggesting Luka Doncic may have crossed the line, too.
With a minute left in the third quarter, Bitadze fouled Doncic on what he thought was a clean steal. Consequently, Doncic went to the free-throw line, and Bitadze began talking trash to get into his head.
When Doncic missed his first free throw, things escalated, and Doncic began going back and forth with him. This is when Doncic was the one who was first recorded hurling profane words at Bitadze in Serbian.
“Jebem ti mater,” he reportedly said as per the video, which directly translates to, “I f–k your mother.” According to LegendZ, this is a common slur used in trash-talk across Serbia. But that does not mean it doesn’t have the ability to trigger someone to say something much worse in return.
“Jebem ti familiju,” Bitadze apparently responded, which means, “I f–k your whole family” in Serbian. It was at this point that the Lakers’ star felt Bitadze took it too far and went over to the officials to inform them about Bitadze’s words.
“You can’t allow him to talk about my f——g family, okay? He can’t be talking about my f—–g family. He can’t be talking that s–t. I don’t care if people are talking s–t, but don’t talk about my family,” said Doncic to the officials before turning to Bitadze and saying, “I’ll f**k you up.”
Even the Magic bench eventually got involved, asking for Doncic to be penalized for delaying the game, but the Lakers star intervened and said, “he can’t talk about my family.”
“I’ll f–k you up m———-er, don’t mention my f——g family again,” said Doncic to Bitadze after making the second free throw.
After the game, both players remained adamant that they had a right to defend their loved ones from being unnecessarily maligned when they had nothing to do with what was happening on the court.
While most people were quick to blame Goga Bitadze, who, according to the video, has also previously verbally abused Pascal Siakam’s mother during a game, this video shows that even Doncic may have been the one who crossed the line first.
I know some might say that the language that Doncic used was considered acceptable, as it is common in trash-talk. But just as family was a sensitive subject for Doncic, Bitadze’s mother was a sensitive subject for him.
It doesn’t justify what Bitadze said, but it definitely explains why he said it. In my opinion, the technicals should not have been rescinded as both players are nearly equally at fault here.
Doncic got the last laugh as the Lakers walked away with the 105-104 win courtesy of a clutch game-winner from Luke Kennard. The Lakers are 46-26 currently, with 10 games left in the season.
It will be interesting to see if Doncic can steer clear of a 16th technical foul before the regular season ends. Otherwise, the Lakers may lose their superstar to an automatic one-game suspension.
