According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, the Dallas Mavericks franchise superstar has suffered another left calf strain; this time in training camp.

Luka Doncic’s contusion in the left calf will be reevaluated in at least one week. Head coach Jason Kidd says Dallas is not worried about this injury. They believe he will be ready by the start of the regular season.

Doncic has a history of left calf strains, most notably in the 2023 preseason and during the 2022 playoffs.

Former general manager of the Sacramento Kings, Vlade Divac, has finally come clean to fans around the NBA and of the franchise as to why he passed on Luka Doncic.

For those who are not aware, Divac decided to take Marvin Bagley III with the second pick in the 2018 pick over Doncic. While Bagley didn’t have the worst run with the Kings, it wasn’t pleasant as he was never available to play, and it became apparent how disconnected both sides were before ending their partnership.

I say all this to say that Bagley isn’t even a tenth of the player Doncic is, but Divac’s reasoning? De’Aaron Fox.

“At that position, I already had De’Aaron Fox, whom I had drafted a year earlier,” Divac told Index. “At the time, I believed Fox was a player who could become a franchise star in the coming years. Time will tell if I was wrong. As things stand now, it seems I was, but I still have faith in Fox having a great career.”

According to the former GM, Divac felt Doncic and Fox couldn’t coexist. On the other hand, fans thought that since Kyrie Irving and Doncic paired together so well, it could have been the same for Doncic and Fox.

However, Divac explains his reasoning:

“No,” Divac said when asked if Fox and Doncic could play together like Irving and Doncic have. “Irving is a classic scorer, just like Luka. Fox isn’t; he’s a playmaker who needs the ball, just like Luka. I could’ve taken Luka, but then I’d have had to trade Fox. Interestingly, Phoenix also passed on Luka, and at the time, their coach was Igor Kokoškov, who had coached Luka in Slovenia. Atlanta drafted Luka, but they traded him away. It was Dallas that eventually took him. I love watching Luka; I really enjoy his style of basketball. I had my own reasons for making that decision. Maybe I made a mistake, but time will tell.”

Since the night these players were drafted, Doncic has cleared these players in terms of individual success and accomplishments.

While making it to the NBA Finals once in his career, Deandre Ayton seemingly had issues in Phoenix and looked to be falling flat with his current team, the Portland Trail Blazers.

Young is a phenomenal player but was in heated rumors and conversations about being traded. This is when the Atlanta Hawks still had Dejounte Murray on their roster. For Young, he hasn’t been to the heights, like the Finals, as the other two men have.

Since the 2018 draft, Doncic has had the most success. His team is on the up-and-up, he’s been in the Finals, he’s playing with Irving, and he has a fantastic roster built around him. Doncic has always been in the MVP conversation.

As Divac said, time will only tell whether the Kings made the right decision by passing up on Doncic for Bagley.

Teammates Told Luka Doncic To Stop Whining, Play Actual Defense

According to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, Luka Doncic’s teammates and Jason Kidd are tired of his antics toward the officials and his failure to show up to play defense. Game 3 displayed how miserable Doncic can be when he’s always complaining, foul-baiting, and never playing defense.

“In the three seasons he has coached Doncic, [Jason] Kidd has told him several truths: that he needed to stop making enemies of officials with persistent whining; that he needed to give a more consistent effort on defense; and that he needed to get in better shape to be at his best when his team needed him,” Ramona Shelburne wrote.

Doncic has always struggled with being in shape and mental maturity; it’s now getting to the point where it’s costing them in the biggest series of everyone’s career. For his teammates, with people wondering how they are responding, they are tired of it.

“Kidd has said these things publicly and privately. So have Doncic’s teammates in Dallas and on the Slovenian national team.”

The 25-year-old fouled out with a couple of minutes to go in the game, where Dallas could have made it a 2-1 series deficit. However, Doncic decided to quit playing basketball, complain to the refs, and disappoint his team.

Game 4 is Friday night at 5:30 PM MST or 8:30 PM EST.