{"id":658355,"date":"2026-05-08T19:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T19:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658355\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T19:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T19:52:11","slug":"skip-bayless-didnt-waste-any-time-getting-to-a-ludicrous-luka-doncic-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658355\/","title":{"rendered":"Skip Bayless didn’t waste any time getting to a ludicrous Luka Doncic take"},"content":{"rendered":"

Skip Bayless didn’t waste any time getting to a ludicrous Luka Doncic take<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Skip Bayless reunited with Stephen A. Smith on Friday as the old First Take buddies were back at it for one day only.<\/p>\n

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And after Bayless decided to tell the world that he thinks LeBron James<\/a> is the ninth-best player of all time, he was far from done. He also had a ludicrous take about the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> and Luka Doncic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Lakers haven’t had Doncic in this postseason as he recovers from injury. They got past the Houston Rockets<\/a> in the first round but now trail 2-0 to the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> in round two.<\/p>\n

Bayless thinks they’re actually better off without Doncic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lakers are a better, both ends of the floor, basketball team without Luka,” Bayless told Smith.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Cavs’ James Harden gamble made sense but has busted again<\/a><\/p>\n

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Come on, man.<\/p>\n

There’s no way he thinks this is actually true unless he’s best friends with former Mavericks<\/a> GM Nico Harrison.<\/p>\n

The Lakers’ best chance of upsetting the Thunder would be with Doncic healthy and playing. Sure, they’d still be an underdog with Luka, but without him, they’ve got no chance.<\/p>\n

Doncic is one of the best players in the NBA, and to suggest that somehow offensively the Lakers are better off without him is a wild take.<\/p>\n

But hey, that’s just what these guys do, and back together again, Bayless and Smith aren’t holding back on the ridiculous ideas.<\/p>\n

More NBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Skip Bayless didn’t waste any time getting to a ludicrous Luka Doncic take originally appeared on The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,307962,7220,1173,7896,7232,11473,27323,5548,69950,85,41711],"class_list":["post-658355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-cavs","tag-houston-rockets","tag-james-harden","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luka-doncic","tag-mavericks","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-skip-bayless","tag-sports","tag-stephen-a-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}