Luka Doncic has responded to former Mavs player Chandler Parsons’ claims that there is beef between him and former teammate Kristaps Porzingis.
Provided Porzingis is healthy enough to take the court, he and Luka will face off in the NBA Finals.
Parsons added fuel the fire by saying, “They do not like [Kristaps] Porzingis in Dallas. Luka did not like playing with him, there is an actual beef there. Everytime he touches the ball he’s getting booed.” (via Run It Back).
Doncic was asked about Parsons’ comments while speaking to reporters on Tuesday and well and truly cleared the air.
“That’s why I don’t watch a lot of that,” Luka said. “Because people don’t know. I talked to Chandler Parsons probably twice in my life. I don’t know how he would know that. But me and KP [Porzingis] have a good relationship. I don’t know why people say otherwise.”
Porzingis was honest about their struggles when he first arrived in Dallas in 2019 when he was on the Old Man and the Three Podcast with JJ Redick last year, when he was asked if there were initial tensions between him and Doncic over who the number one option was going to be.
“Early on, for sure, but I think we both tried to make it work. I think communication and maturity on both our parts should have been better,” Porzingis said. “It’s a big mix of things. Maturity, for sure. Like again, I am talking [about] what I could have done better. And then, I was not that much into analytics and numbers. If somebody, I think, at that stage of my career presented it to me the right way and said, ‘This is what we need to do, this is what we need from you — you are going to be way more effective doing this.’ Like kinda of explaining to me better. I think that would have made the difference a little bit.”
Although it wasn’t always smooth sailing for Porzingis and Luka in Dallas when they played together, it seems things are good between the two of them now.