Rick Carlisle’s battles with Luka Doncic on the Dallas Mavericks | DZ 6-12-25

Rick Carlisle’s battles with Luka Doncic on the Dallas Mavericks | DZ 6-12-25

i’m just now going through the audio book of the Tim McMahon Luca book and uh kind of going at a slower pace um but it’s it’s to it’s to Luca’s rookie year and it’s just about how big of an a-hole Rick Carile is was and seeing him in the finals i think a lot of people may have have little revisionist history of how his career ended here in Dallas because I think we all agreed it was time for him to go right yeah I mean it’s complicated you know like you can say that he was an [ __ ] it was time for him to go uh he may have I don’t know run this guy or that guy out of town on the staff while also saying like he’s an awesome coach he got the most out of his teams here post championship and championship and yeah it’s a it may be a little bit complicated but at the end of the day like he’s a Mavs legend for sure he’s a Mavs legend he wasn’t I I thought the bottom line was it wasn’t working with Luca and you choose the superstar over the coach right if it’s not working even if it’s a great coach and that’s that’s the way it was viewed and yes when he when he left a lot of the stuff wasn’t only that it was time but hey actually this guy was kind of an a-hole and but it was so everything though it was Haralab and Donnie you know like everything was happening at once and if you listen to Haralab now he speaks the most highly of Rick now everybody’s got their favorites or whatever but Haralab will say “Look I know how people perceive the guy but he’ll listen to a new idea and he’ll that’s obviously evidenced by the success he’s had elsewhere coaching.” So well in the end he’s pragmatic right he is kind of a controlling guy and he doesn’t play young players a lot but he did he’s a got an eye for talent he knows basketball and like immediately remember cuz uh I think there was a thing early with Dennis Smith Jr.’s career where he wasn’t playing him enough or something and people were wondering about boy he just doesn’t like young players that’s not the kind of coach he is when they won the championship that was a real veteranladen team there was no guys he was bringing he’s always been bad with young players luca comes in he immediately recognizes you know what I’ve got a lot of philosophies about defense and that’s the most Nico that’s the most important thing and that’s how we win actually I’m going to kind of leave it to this guy why even tell him what to do offensively i don’t understand how his like he’s so awesome and we’re going to become an offensive juggernaut and that’s the way we’ll win games by outscoring people like and then they have one of the best offenses in the NBA as I recall and they did that a couple different times and yeah Haralab that’s a good example because Haralab from what I understand and even Haralab would probably tell you I’m not like an a people person i’m not shotty right i’m not a guy i don’t want to have dinner with you got it we’re not going to get along i’m not worried about our friendship i’m worried about numbers and this and what’s going to make the team better and ultimately I think that’s Rick Carlau too and he thought okay this guy does have some stuff I can use i’m going to you it’s using all your resources so yeah Rick Carlile was great and then he finds himself in this situation and he’s work that to uh seemingly to the best you could with that you know he’s he’s brought that talent as far as you can bring it which might even be the uh the whole thing so I didn’t know this heral only took the Mavs job if they drafted Luca yeah i mean he waited until after the draft he doesn’t Well he took Yes he took to to he waited till after the draft to take the job officially but he is a big part of the reason they took Luca because he’d been working for Mark for a few years and I actually think Har officially coming in the building although yeah I think he could pound his chest over Luca a little more uh he doesn’t there’s a lot of people that’ll claim Luca Donnie for sure i mean he should he made the trade but Ral was a big part of that yeah and the second thing is that I’m glad you brought up Dennis Smith Jr because you know he did play a lot his rookie year but in listening to the book it was only because the Mavs were trying to tank i think had they Yes had they been somewhat of a contender in who carlo hated Dennis Smith from the night of the draft on at least that’s what everybody says and uh this first clip from the Luca book written by Tim McMahon um he kind of tries to drive a wedge between Dennis Smith and Luca and this is after the fourth game of the year so the fourth game in Luca’s career he’s he’s having to go through this with his coach and I will change the source i blame Dart right now carile made it clear clip after clip that the kind of effort he saw in Atlanta was completely unacceptable suddenly Carile paused the video and declared that he needed to address the elephant in the room he called out Smith in front of the entire team and basketball staff for being jealous of Donuch which is pretty strong to do and now the book it goes on to explain that Luca and Dennis Smith were extremely cool uh not roommates but lived in the same building played a lot of video video games they got along well so this kind of came out of left field and another funny thing about this book is this guy uh tries to do his best dennis Smith Jr impersonation yeah I remember listening to this and yeah you can tell the guy’s not exactly familiar with basketball culture uhhuh donuch Smith snapped back at the coach what we real cool Smith said yo dog i He’s probably just having to read the quote but still i don’t know if you have to do the Smith snapped back what we real cool Smith said genuinely surprised by Carile’s assertion with a confused look toward Donuch Smith asked if there were any issues he wasn’t aware of a shocked Donuch shook his head appalled that his coat seemed determined to drive a wedge between himself and his teammate so yeah within five games now he’s got to do this mental game of I’m friends with this guy the coach i don’t know just not the best situation for Luca to to jump into I don’t think yeah it was weird and I remember I remember like people saying that in in Europe the coaches will get on your ass like and I’ve seen Luca get yelled at in timeouts by Slovenian coaches uh like he just takes it it looks like a college coach so I don’t think he has a problem being yelled at or being coached hard you know he was 15 playing with adults they were having to coach him hard i think it was more just that Carile is a guy who’s really into manipulation well that’s not just coaching hard that’s like a he’s a mind game psychological warfare guy and that I don’t know that Luca was used to and I thought it was more about how he treated other people right you would hear that i mean just kind of like naughty like Dennis Smith Jr that’s what I remember hearing at the time is that that really bothered Luca like how awkward is that i mean you know how that is when your boss is calling you out and and your buddy’s there and you’re like “Dude don’t come on well you don’t have a problem it doesn’t have anything to do with us that that’s a Yeah you’ve had boss you don’t like how they treat other people but they’re fine with you and they might be fine with you cuz you’re the superstar you know Luca’s the superstar of course the coach is going to be kind of cool with him but yeah to see how he treats those around him yeah and so it’s just two strong personalities that were not going to work out in the long run and I don’t know if if the general fan wants to say Carile should have stayed and Maz would have been better with him i don’t know but it was clearly not going to work and that was just from game four so I would imagine they had a lot of spats after that uh this kind of details Luca’s very go with the flow who didn’t like being coached they bring up Rondo and even Jason Kid and I I was curious if if this was a small reason why Carile recommended Kid on the Way out the Mavs got a glimpse of that when Smith missed a November 24 home game against the Celtics an Eastern Conference contender so they’re saying Luca was very comfortable playing point guard without Dennis Smith Jr and so I think that’s when they began to shop him a little in an otherwise phenomenal first quarter if you tug at Donic’s leash be ready for him to bark the friction between coach and phenom about creative freedom was a consistent subplot during Donuch’s rookie season carile had earned a reputation as a control freak having clashed with accomplished veteran point guards Jason Kidd and Rondo about play calling ultimately relinquishing the reigns to Kid and running Rondo out of town some of that type of tension developed between Carile and Donuch as well but their onc court issues were more stylistic disagreements so do you bring Kid in saying “Look Kid had to face the same battles you did.” Kid knows what he didn’t like about that kind of coaching philosophy was it just a buddy hire kind of a former point guard absolutely kid was hired to be Luca’s coach kid was hired for Luca i have a superstar who runs the team same thing you know how to be a superstar that’s what we’re all about is the superstar and that was part of our criticism I think when he first got hired is just that you know the the best coaches in general seem to be able to relate to the entire team yeah you don’t you just don’t have that many guys who are super super skilled who end up being great head coaches you know you reference it all the time with Ted Williams right like just do what I do they don’t understand that people can’t grasp the finer points of uh instruction like they can but I don’t know i think this this for Rick is great because he doesn’t seem he’s probably still a little bit of an [ __ ] but he seems a little more fun now like this happening at the end of his career whether it’s not the end but this happening in the later stages of his career I love it like that people may remember him like for this because this Pacers team is fun and it totally different than that Mavericks team and remember when totally different you know you’ve cited this in many many times the when the Mavs did hire him that was the result of a really in-depth coaching search where they were breaking it down analytic wise weren’t they on saying who’s the best coach that is out there yeah there’s a lot there was some writing about this roland Beach was a guy who used to work for the Mavs who owned a website called 82 games and they did I mean Cuban’s description it was on bad radio to of the coaching search was insane like running out of timeout numbers and looking at plus minuses of guys like how they played for their team as opposed to another team in the same season it was thorough uh and impressive which is why it’s a bit odd that the next time around they the same guy Mark Cuban interviewed no one it made it was incredibly baffling there’s no search whatsoever and right it’s guy I know they threw Durk in there as a smoke screen you know not saying Dirk didn’t want Kid hired but they kind of brought him in as cover like well look Durk’s repres yeah I like him that’s cool um he would have said that for Tyson Chandler right yeah and so any of his buddies on that team uh Rick now I don’t know it’s I get frustrated watching the finals i watched quite a bit of the game last night just because I still have This Should Be Us uh like when I see Benedict Mathan or TJ McConnell like doing crazy fun stuff I’m like that that’s what’s fun about being in the finals those guys will never buy a drink in Indiana again type thing you know that could have been and this team they have could have Yeah like definitely could have beat Oklahoma City i was back and been in the finals against Rick Carile back in December before Luca got hurt or even in January you’re thinking boy Naji in the playoffs like that’s going to Naji could become our uh Deshawn Stevenson of 2025 like guys who just they’re in the lore forever and when I’m watching TJ McConnell steal inbound passes and put up threes and the that place is just it’s insane the fieldhouse up there it’s they’re beating the Thunder at their own game you know game one I think you said like man they just got lucky game two they got walloped pretty hard but dude they they thoroughly dominated Oklahoma City last night even though they were down five heading into the fourth and it’s I think Rick has a lot to do with it a lot to do with it because the Thunder are just a very hard team to disrupt and his his teams are capable of doing it yeah they got in their face a little bit mel Turner bullied Chad down the stretch felt like and he had like five blocks too so uh last clip for you um so we talked a little bit about this Luca’s step back whether it was curated in Europe or whether he developed it his rookie year in the NBA he says he had never done a step back before until the NBA which I don’t think is true um it’s not but okay he may have called it something else but sure uh Carle hated it hunted highlights to please his rapidly expanding base of Instagram followers carile also hated how often Donic launched step back threes a shot the rookie took more often than anyone other than reigning MVP and scoring leader James Harden he told him right to his face “you can stick that step back up your ass it only works in Maaga and Venice,” said Proopio a Boston bred wise ass whose sense of humor didn’t exactly endear him to Carile so yeah the coach telling Phenom Luca well here’s the thing about that and that’s why I feel like maybe Rick eventually had to go uh he was right lucas first couple years that was he was not making that shot it was a bad shot he would take it you might have remembered it being good because he made some big ones but the the numbers were there that was a shitty shot for Luca but as of I don’t know I think last year the year before maybe the year before that he was hitting it at a degree that was like higher than most people hit their normal threes like it’s become the most unstoppable shot or one of in the game but he might not have ever gotten to that point if Carile was always his coach right because Carile was trying to kill that shot you know sometimes you just got to be able to take it to eventually make it yeah i think the creative liberties thing in the last clip kind of nailed it where Luca may not have ever blossomed into what he is now if Carlile would have remained his coach yeah and it would have been different um but but I agree i think and I think Kid’s been good for Luca i The crazy thing is is uh we’re talking about this like it didn’t work like oh was Kid the right coach for Luca i don’t know man they went to the finals two out of three years with wildly different rosters yeah there were problems but it was 100% working right and it was because yes you were not hired as X’s and O’s guy no one is raving about Jason Kids uh matchups and all that kind of stuff it was because he was hired to let Luca be Luca and bring the best out of that and he did it worked but it worked [Music]

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