Luka Doncic Discussion: Lean Mean Slovenian Machine

I am wondering what all those pissed off Dallas fans are thinking when they see Luka now??

 

If all this goes how i think it will, dude should get a statue here

 

some are saying they wish it could have been there but that it might not have been possible to motivate the change without the insult/trade. that makes sense to me.

but i've seen people in denial, claiming that he was always in shape until after international competition and that he only fell out of shape in the month between that and training camp. i don't think this was ever true and is a fantasy to try to avoid crying.

anyway, i was one who thought it was unlikely he'd even look like this right now. but another interesting thing in that article was basically him admitting that he wasn't really prepared for the nba lifestyle, pointing to the travel in particular as a reason he had trouble staying in good condition. and it was peculiar that he often didn't "play his way into shape". remember, the mavs were kind of flabbergasted that he put on weight during the season at times--something most players don't do. he's also specifically saying in that article that he's got to continue the work for it to matter, and maybe that was something he didn't do previously.

at this point, i really think something has clicked with him in terms of taking care of his body. i'll be surprised if we see him looking like he did last year again any time soon.

 

100% this

 

Definitely a lot of denial and cope running through the Mavs fan I know.

It's crazy to me that they bought into the narratives around his conditioning so completely. I get that he was never super ripped, but clearly his performance on the court was fine.

Oh well. Their loss. Our gain

 

was it a language barrier, or did luka say he'd never been to the US prior to arriving in dallas? pretty wild for a star of that magnitude, right? like if the US had the top soccer prospect in the world when they were 14, they would have definitely been to europe and south america several times by age 18, right?

was also interesting to hear him basically say he thinks there are 8 or more teams in the west capable of winning a ring. he didn't say that exactly, but that's how i read it, and i think i actually agree. like, indiana was probably going to win the ring last year before haliburton went down--you're telling me that we, or golden state, or even dallas has no chance this year?

 

he had at least visited once before

 

yeah, that's right. guessing it was just a language thing, and he meant he'd never had another home here.

having moved the other way (from la to dallas), it is definitely different.