Doncic, who had dragged an otherwise unremarkable Mavericks team through the Western Conference, became the face of their failure. Dallas coach Jason Kidd was forced to come out and defend his maligned star, even though without Doncic, the Mavericks were a faded Kyrie Irving and a bunch of role players.

Kristaps Porziņģis, who played alongside Dončić in Dallas for 2 1/2 seasons, sounded as surprised as anyone. Porziņģis said his phone wasn’t working, so he learned about the trade when someone told him about it on the streets of Philadelphia, where the Celtics were in town to meet the Philadelphia 76ers.

When the Dallas Mavericks traded star forward Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers late on this past Saturday (Feb 1) night, the Boston Celtics media corp was as flabbergasted as the rest of us. The deal,