A day for weirdness

 Woke up this morning to a brave new world, and, no, not a world in which hockey fans in Ottawa boo the American national anthem. That actually happened last night, and good for those patriotic Canadians. Polite as they are, they know bad manners when they see them, and respond in kind.

But enough about oafish American presidents who think bullying longtime good neighbors is smart foreign policy. Ignorance and stupidity will keep for another day, of which there no doubt will be plenty.

No, this strange new world comes to us out of the NBA, where this morning we awoke to Luka Doncic the Laker and Anthony Davis the Maverick. Yes, you read that right. Last night, in a three-team deal we're told shocked the two principals and even Lakers quasi-CEO LeBron James, Los Angeles shipped AD to Dallas for Luka, one of the top five players in the league.

Not even the usual insiders know exactly why this happened -- Mavs execs say only it was to bolster their defense -- and why now, when the annual NBA epoch is still two months and change away from the playoffs. Folks can speculate, and will, about whether or not the Mavs had soured on Luka, who's been on the shelf with various ailments for all but 22 games this season. And the often-injured AD, out again, hasn't exactly been needed in L.A., where the Lakers stand fifth in the West and have won eight of their last 10 games.

Whatever. In any case, Saturday's deal was seismic in a way, say, Kareem-to-the-Lakers or Gretzky-to-the-Kings was seismic. And so it's going to take awhile for the weirdness to wear off.

(Which I suppose makes it apropos so many of us learned about this on Groundhogs Day. After all, what's not weird about our annual ritual of pulling a furry rodent out of his den at the crack of dawn to predict when winter will end?)

Anyway, get ready for the Luka/LeBron show, which ought to be something.

LeBron, supposedly, has always wanted to play with Luka, who in turn has always regarded LBJ as his idol. So there's that. And, of course, there's also the notion that the Lakers are surely weary of being an afterthought every spring. With Luka and the parts already in place that have carried L.A. to a 28-19 record thus far, you have to think those days are over for now.

But the first time Luka trots out there in Lakers colors is bound to be disorienting. Remember the first time you saw Fran Tarkenton in a Giants uni, and then saw him back in Vikings purple? Or how about Johnny Unitas wearing Chargers gold-and-robin's-egg-blue? 

Joe Montana in Chiefs red. Gretzky in Kings black-and-silver. Your eyes telling your brain, "Nah, this just don't look right."

Now, you can make the argument the disorientation isn't nearly so disorienting anymore in an era of rampant free agency, and that's a fair point. Players jump teams all the time these days; hell, it even happens in college now thanks to NIL and the ungoverned transfer portal. So the days when seeing an icon wearing the wrong uniform perhaps doesn't make the vision swim the way it used to.

Still.

Still, occasionally, the vision still swims. Like, right now, for instance.