Finley revealed that he had to steal Doncic's beer, as the Mavs social team wanted to take a photo and didn’t want him holding it. In the end, the Dallas executive argued that he gave the former franchise superstar his beer again.
The Luka Doncic beer incident will always stand as a memorable event that simply hinted at the eventual exit of the Slovenian sensation to the Dallas Mavericks.
Luka Doncic
Luka Doncic
Luka Doncic
MIN: 35.42
PTS: 32.37 (56.96%)
REB: 7.71
AS: 8.57
ST: 1.39
BL: 0.51
TO: 4.04
GM: 49
Shortly after leading the Mavs to the 2024 NBA Finals upon beating the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games of the Western Conference Finals, Doncic was caught celebrating and drinking a beer with his father, Sasha. But a few seconds later, Michael Finley entered and snatched the canned drink, which instantly prompted an intriguing reaction from Luka.
In the end, this viral clip emerged as a key element for many out of the reported frustrations of the Mavericks regarding Doncic's off-court habits, which led to the superstar being dealt to the Los Angeles Lakers in the most stunning trade in NBA history.
But in a recent appearance on the K&C Masterpiece sports talk show on 105.3 The Fan, the now Dallas interim general manager dismissed all negative speculations that occurred after he took Doncic's beer nearly two years ago. Finley claimed that he had to do it for the social media team of the Mavericks.
“I leave the court. I see number 77 standing over there having a beer, and I say, ‘Congratulations, young fella, you definitely deserve that beer.’ And he's like, ‘Thanks, man, thanks.’ I leave him. I go in the locker room. I celebrate with the rest of the team. We're having a great time. Champagne is being popped. Pictures are being taken and we're having a jolly old time. And I come out of the locker room and our social media department is, is frozen. I'm like, ‘What’s going on guys? What's wrong?’ They said, ‘We wanna take a picture of Luka and his dad.’ I said, ‘Well, take the picture. You guys are great at it, take the picture. They said, ‘But Luka’s holding a beer, he's drinking a beer.’ I said, ‘Well, go take the beer from him.’ They said, ‘What? We can't do that. I said, ‘OK, I'll do it.’ So when you watch the video, I go take the beer, I hug Luka again, and that's why Luka looked like, ‘Man, what are you doing? We just talked about this and you said it was cool,’ ” Finley confessed.
"I take the beer, he looks at me in an odd way. They take the picture. Two minutes later, he comes back and I give him the beer. We continue to celebrate our win. A lot of people want to make more of it than it was."
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