There will certainly be tension between Kyrie Irving and Boston fans, but there will also be tension between Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis in the NBA Finals, according to former Mavs player Chandler Parsons.
“It will be way more violent towards Kyrie Irving in Boston, but don’t get it twisted, they do not like Porzingis in Dallas,” Parsons said on Run It Back. “Luka [Doncic] did not like playing with him, there is an actual beef there where it’s going to be every time he touches the ball, he’s getting booed.”
Parsons continued, “It didn’t work out and Dallas, for whatever reason, those fans, they’re proudful. If you’re hurt, if you’re not playing, if you’re not doing what you were doing in the years before you got to the Mavs… When you go back and play that team you want to prove something, you want to show what they’re missing, he game has more juice to it. Now we’re talking about the NBA Finals.”
While rehabbing from a torn ACL that robbed him of his fourth season in the NBA with the Knicks, Porzingis was traded to Dallas in 2019.
Porzingis and Luka played together for a short time before the big man tore his meniscus in the 2020 playoffs.
Porzingis was then basically salary-dumped at the 2022 trade deadline along with a second-round pick to the Wizards in exchange for Davis Bertans.
Luka and Porzingis played 110 games together in their time at Dallas and Porzingis himself admitted that there was tension between him and Doncic.
“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,” the C’s center said on The Old Man and the Three last year.
But, when Porzingis was at Washington he told reporters that him and Luka “were super cool, we will always hang out and I would say that’s the biggest misconception.”
Things may be cool between him and Luka, but the Dallas crowd might have other ideas.
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