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Jeanie Buss reveals the secret keys to the Doncic trade

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Jeanie Buss, co-owner and president of the Los Angeles Lakers, has revealed details of thetrade that the Los Angeles team closed with the Dallas Mavericks to sign Luka Doncic.

My father, Jerry Buss, would be very proud of the Doncic trade

“For me, it was really important not to blow up the team (during negotiations). If it had leaked and the trade hadn’t gone through, it would be really unfair to the progress that the coaching staff had made with the team. Because it’s a huge distraction,” Jerry Buss’ daughter said after the game that theLakers won against the Timberwolves with 21 points, 13 rebounds and five assists in 36 minutes from Doncic.

Dave McMenamin reports that Nico Harrison, the Mavericks’ controversial general manager, first contacted Rob Pelinka (the Lakers’ vice president of operations) on January 7. The trade was finalized three and a half weeks later, with Harrison, Pelinka, Buss and the Mavs’ owners the only people aware of the talks until February 1.

When you get a player of that caliber, you have to give up a lot of things. My dad was a great poker player and he said he always wanted me to remember that poker was a game of patience

Jeanie Buss, who acknowledges that she had doubts about signing rookie coach JJ Redick, wanted to highlight the role of Rob Pelinka in the negotiations: “I have full confidence in Rob, who is the one who knows how to carry out a deal step by step to make sure everything is complete and arranged, and that’s exactly what happened.”

Asked what her father, Jerry Buss, would think about Doncic’s trade to the Lakers, she said “he would be very proud”.

Jeanie Buss reveals the secret keys to the Doncic trade to the Lakers: “It was a poker game”

“When you get a player of that stature, you have to give up a lot of things. But my dad was a great poker player and he said he always wanted me to remember that poker was a game of patience. That you had to wait to have the right cards, but once you had them, you had to go from 0 to 100 and play them and not be afraid to play them. So it was difficult because we weren’t looking to trade Anthony Davis or Max Christie. But it was a deal that we would have done and we had to try,” he shared.