{"id":2025,"section":"sports","section_label":"Sports","url":"https://www.brokenews.co/sports/2025","headline":"Doncic jokes his mentor Dirk Nowitzki has gone quiet on him","dek":"Ahead of the Lakers' Friday game against the Trail Blazers, Doncic called out Dirk Nowitzki for not calling him anymore.","body":"Luka Doncic used his pregame media time before the Lakers hosted the Trail Blazers on Friday to needle Dirk Nowitzki, his longtime mentor and friend. The game streamed on Amazon Prime, where Nowitzki now works as part of the NBA studio crew, and the former champion had just finished praising Doncic on air ahead of the matchup.\n\nAsked about it, Doncic did not return the sentiment so much as point out that Nowitzki has gone quiet off camera. \"He don't even call,\" Doncic said, making clear that whatever bond the two built during Doncic's rise in Dallas has not translated into much communication lately.\n\nIt is a small moment, but it fits a larger story about Doncic settling into his new life with the Lakers. According to a separate report from The Athletic, part of that adjustment has come through blunt, trash-talking banter with a Lakers assistant coach, the kind of relationship where trust gets built through ribbing rather than compliments. Doncic calling out his old mentor for silence reads less like a complaint and more like him testing out that same dynamic with a new team around him.","published_at":"2026-11-07T23:49:20.417156+00:00","source_count":3,"written_from":[{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Lakers’ Luka Doncic calls out NBA mentor: ‘He don’t even call’","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/lakers-luka-doncic-calls-nba-051949381.html"},{"outlet":"New York Post","publisher":"New York Post","title":"Lakers’ Luka Doncic calls out NBA mentor: ‘He don’t even call’","url":"https://nypost.com/2026/11/07/sports/lakers-luka-doncic-nba-mentor-friend/"},{"outlet":"The Athletic","publisher":"The Athletic","title":"How brotherly love — and some s--- talk — made Luka Dončić feel at home with the Lakers","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7754084/2026/11/06/luka-doncic-michael-wexler-lakers-home/"}],"more_coverage":[{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Lakers’ Luka Doncic calls out NBA mentor: ‘He don’t even call’","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/lakers-luka-doncic-calls-nba-051949870.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Luka Doncic Roasts Dirk Nowitzki In Playful Dig","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/luka-doncic-roasts-dirk-nowitzki-215849521.html"}],"image":null,"embed":null,"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","attribution":"Analysis data is licensed CC BY 4.0. Credit brokenews and link to the story page you took it from. Source headlines, story titles taken from a source headline, and quoted passages remain the property of their publishers and are quoted for comparison, not licensed onward.","terms":"https://www.brokenews.co/about#reuse"}