Last year one of the biggest storylines to emerge from the Dallas Mavericks, besides the coaching and general manager search, was the feud between Kristaps Porzingis and Luka Doncic. This officially began when owner Mark Cuban, stated on 105.3 The Fan that the two had “dust ups” off the court but on the court they are fine. Following this in an interview in Spanish Porzingis answered a question saying, “I’ve never had any problems with my teammates off the court, I’ve always gotten along very well with them…I don’t know what Cuban was talking about. I try to be as professional as possible, do what I have to do and be a soldier for the team.” There had already been questions circulating the two but this confusion only added fuel to the fire.

Seven months later a lot has changed but one thing that has remained the same is the obsession with this supposed feud. As Josh mentioned in his article there have been plenty of players that did not get along off the court that were able to put their differences aside to succeed on the court. Both Porzingis and Doncic are off to a good start and we have seen multiple games where they combined for a plethora of the team’s points. The most notable instance was the team’s 112-104 overtime win over the Los Angeles Clippers where Doncic scored 26 points while Porzingis scored 30 points. 

Their connection and chemistry on the court has increased and is more clear and in my opinion the curiosity about their off court relationship has subsided because of this. Despite this in an interview this past week with CBS 11 they inquired about his relationship with Doncic. He responded saying, “We have a good relationship. We talk a lot now, we talk about everything, we speak spanish we always joke around we can talk smack about other people and they don’t know what we’re saying.” He continued to speak on their relationship when asked further how he would define it. 

At this point their relationship off the court is a non-issue and the recurrence of it in conversations with the media is just a trap question and tiresome. Porzingis seems much happier overall, most likely due to the fact that he has a larger role on the Mavs this year because this coaching staff has been much more accommodating to work to his strengths. Until we are proven otherwise maybe we put this storyline to rest.