Before the main topic of this post, I want to set a pin here to acknowledge Luka Doncic’s first game as a Laker against the Dallas Mavericks last night and lament one more time the indescribably horrible trade that sent the NBA’s most exciting player to L.A. Luka exchanged ear-to-ear grins and extravagant handshakes and hugs with his former Dallas teammates in the moments before the tip and directed at least a couple of hard glares toward the visitors’ bench after hitting a big three and an impossible reverse layup. Luka wound up with a triple-double, of course (19 pts, 15 rbs, 12 assists), and said after the game “I didn’t play great.”

And he’s right. It was a very average game for Luka. Which only emphasizes how truly great he is. Triple-doubles are a given for Luka, the ho-hum result of a merely pedestrian performance.

The most regrettable part of this whole thing is the unforgivable incompetence or inept apathy or both that led to probably the worst trade in professional sports history. It was revealed again last night that Luka never had any intention of leaving Dallas and was completely blown away by the trade. It was obvious last night that he is still in shock, he’s still in a daze. He’s still sad about it.

When asked by reporters last night if the win over the Mavericks can provide some closure for him so he can move on with his career and his life, Luka answered, “No, not really. Closure is going to take a while. This is not ideal. There are lots of emotions. But I’m just taking it little by little. Every day is a little better.”

Luka was 19 when the Mavs drafted him. He just turned 26. In the words of Kyrie Irving, he’s just an innocent kid, a mega-talented innocent kid who is not an American. He’s not from this culture, he’s not grown up with an understanding of these expectations. Sometimes he responded to things that came at him in ways that felt awkward or weird. But that’s on NIco and Kidd and the Mavs. It’s almost like they didn’t try at all. The spin they’re putting out about Luka’s lack of conditioning is a cop-out. Some of it may be true, but you don’t trade a generational talent because he likes an occasional cheeseburger. It’s not like Luka hasn’t made All-NBA five times, had an MVP season last year, and led Dallas to the NBA Finals.

He’s still just a kid. His best years are still ahead of him. This would be like trading Dirk Nowitzki after his sixth year, only worse, because Luka is galaxies ahead of where Dirk was at this stage.

I’ll agree with Dirk who says, “I’ll never be a Lakers fan; but I’ll always be a Luka fan.”

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Sometimes I post things here that I had intended to preach on Sunday, but didn’t because of time–things that wound up on the cutting room floor. Here’s a paragraph or two from our sermon Sunday about Peter’s betrayal of Jesus.

In the Garden of Gethsemane on that last night, Peter drew his sword to protect Jesus from the crowd of guards and soldiers who had come to arrest him. Peter struck one of the officials, cutting off his ear. Peter was going for the kill. He wasn’t aiming at Malchus’ ear. He’s not Mike Tyson. He was going for the guy’s throat, he was trying to cut off his head. But Malchus ducked and Peter cut off his ear. And Jesus said, “No. Put your sword away. Violence doesn’t fix anything; it only leads to more violence. If my Kingdom were of this world, then we’d fight. I’d call down twelve thousand angels and we’d wipe these guys out. But we don’t fight. We never use violence. I’m showing you a different way.”

I preached that. I left this next part out because of time. Here it is, directly from my manuscript.

Here’s a sidebar: It’s interesting to me how we’ll argue and debate and get red in the face about the literal details of creation and the literal details of the ark and the flood and we’ll insist on the literal facts about Jonah and the fish and we’ll parse and dissect every syllable of the Greek words in Paul’s letters, but we’re very quick to dismiss the literal words of our Lord Jesus. Jesus gives very direct commands about violence or money or refugees or forgiveness, and we’re like, “He didn’t really mean that literally.” When we do that, we sound just like the devil. “Did Jesus really say…?” We’ll twist Jesus’ words so he doesn’t really mean half of what he says. That’s another sermon. For another day. Probably a guest speaker.

I should have said it. I’m sorry I didn’t. I cut it because the sermon was running long and I didn’t want to distract from or take away from the main points of the lesson. I called it a sidebar when I wrote it, but it started to feel more like a rabbit trail on Friday and Saturday night. So I cut it. I should have said it.

Peace,

Allan