If Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s loyalty to his players had ever been in question, look no further than his passionate defence of superstar guard Luka Doncic, who was recently the recipient of some criticism from ESPN’s Zach Lowe.
During an episode of Vice TV’s Cari & Jemele Won’t Stick to Sports, Cuban bashed Lowe for calling Doncic “one of the biggest whiners in the [NBA].”
“[Expletive] you, Zach Lowe. You don’t know [expletive],” Cuban said. “I know Luka. He’s not a big whiner. He’s passionate, he cares. He wants to win. … He’s not a whiner, he’s a baller.”
Lowe’s criticism came on a recent episode of his Lowe Post podcast: “[Doncic’s] become one of the biggest whiners in the league. It’s constant, every time he drives he’s whining.”
The guest on the episode of that podcast, fellow ESPN writer Tim MacMahon (who covers the Mavericks, as well as the other Texas clubs), notably added that “Luka’s body language during games, during timeouts, it’s an issue. Luka spends a lot of energy [expletive] at referees. And a lot of the time he has a case, and a lot of times it’s wasted energy and it sucks the life out of [the] team.”
Doncic has individually produced a season strong enough to have his name flitting about in MVP discussions. His team, however, sit on a 9-14 record, good for second-last in the unforgiving Western Conference after having been decimated by COVID-19 and the league’s health and safety protocols.
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