Luka Doncic was not short on jokes for his teammate J.J. Barea.
Remember when people wondered if Luka Doncic’s teammates actually liked him leading up to the 2018 NBA Draft? Us neither.
Earlier on Wednesday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski sent out a series of tweets reporting on the NBA guidelines for guests entering the Orlando bubble at Walt Disney Resort. One of those tweets included the following message: “Each player is allowed one ticket per playoff game for a guest — plus an additional admission for a child (32 inches and below), per memo.”
Doncic saw the “32 inches and below” bit and decided to have a little fun at the expense of his miniature-sized Dallas Mavericks teammate, J.J. Barea:
Doncic quote-tweeted Woj’s original report saying, “You good” with a few laughing emojis while tagging Barea in the tweet.
Barbecue shrimp, anyone?
Luka Doncic roasted poor J.J. Barea
At 5-foot-10, J.J. Barea is taller than the average man, but in the NBA, anything below 6-foot-3 or 6-foot-4 is considered short. While he’s hardly the shortest player in NBA history, and is clearly not quite as short as 32 inches tall, Barea is undersized 99 percent of the time he’s on the court.
None of that has stopped Barea from carving out a productive 14-year NBA career for himself, with 11 of those seasons coming in Dallas, of course. Thanks to his craftiness, speed, high basketball I.Q. and ability to draw fouls while getting under an opponent’s skin, Barea has been a Mavs mainstay and became an NBA champion during the team’s 2011 Finals run.
However, it’s always a delight to see teammates get off playful jabs at each other, and the fact that Doncic was completely comfortable with publicly roasting his teammate like this just speaks to how close they are as teammates.
Luka Doncic is one of the most likable players in the league, and though Barea will definitely have to get the youngster back for this one, it’s hard to stay mad at a guy cracking off quality jokes like that.