Luka Doncic: The Controversies Surrounding His Referee Protests and Fitness

When discussing Luka Doncic It is difficult to avoid two controversial topics that have already become entrenched between its defenders and its detractors: its protests to the referees and their state of form. Even those of us who can consider ourselves followers of the Slovenian star have to admit that sometimes it is difficult to put up with his attitude towards the referees, no matter how right he may be at times. It is something that is always said to have to change, recognizing it himself first, but it is already difficult for it to happen because it seems something entrenched in his own personality.

The reality, however, is that his followers are much more concerned about the second controversial point, that of his state of fitness, the care of his body and the problems that this may cause him in the present and in the future. It gives the feeling that Debates about his weight and shape have dogged him since his second season in the NBA, when he began to experience an important physical change compared to the first, and since then the issue has been reactivated from time to time with the sole exception of the months in which the Disney bubble was played in 2020, in which he was seen in excellent physical condition.

The matter goes far beyond whether “Luka is fat” or not. It is a question that mixes style of play, genetics, habits, diets or the demands that he has on the teams in which he plays.

A heliocentric style of play

Luka Doncic has become the ultimate example of heliocentric playing style, picking up the baton of James Harden, a player who is often compared to for the amount of time he has the ball in his hands. This is a comparison too superficialeven going so far as to be vague, but it highlights the general feeling that exists with him: he does not let go of the ball.

The data largely supports this. Except for his rookie season, in which he placed eleventh, Luka has not dropped out of the top 2 in usage percentage in his entire career, according to Basketball-Reference data. In two seasons he has had the highest percentage, and in two others he has been surpassed only by Giannis Antetokounmpo. In his most “hoarding” campaign, this past 2022-23, 37.6% of his team’s possessions ended up in his hands when he was on the court, more than a third of the total.

Luka Doncic, defended by Giannis Antetokounmpo during the Mavs-Bucks

LM Otero/AP

Like the chicken and the egg, it is not known what came first, Luka’s ball hoarding or the absence of other reliable generators around him. With the Slovenian team it is more than evident, because at the end of the day they have what they have and there is nothing more, but it also happens in Dallas. The only high-level generator he had at his side until last season was Jalen Brunson, and after its explosion we did not get to see what could have been due to its departure for New York. Let’s not fool ourselves, if Doncic monopolizes so much, it is also because he is the most effective option for his team.

Now that in the Dallas Mavericks he has Kyrie Irving On the other hand, we are supposed to see Doncic play more without the ball, an aspect that he took great advantage of in the Real Madrid and in his first years with Slovenia, and that he has lost in the NBA. The moments in which Luka does not have the ball in Dallas are either the brief seconds in which it takes him to pass a block and receive the ball, or possessions in which he rests, sometimes even with his hands on his knees, trying to take a breath to play next.

It will be the task of Jason Kidd better balance the distribution of his team’s possessions so that Doncic can unload a little and that possessions without the ball are not limited to simply resting in the corner.

Jason Kidd and Luka Doncic discuss a play on the sideline

JOHN G. MABANGLO / EFE

Because this excessive use entails a excessive physical load for him. We said before that only Antetokounmpo disputes with Luka the crown of the player with the highest usage percentage in the NBA, and I think we will all agree that the physiques of both cannot be compared. Carrying so much of the weight of the team pays off, and not only in that its performance in seasons and games usually goes from more to less. So far in the American league, Doncic has missed an average of almost 13 games per season, and that figure has increased to 16 and 17 games in the last two, that is without taking into account the number of them he has missed. has played touched or directly injured.

Genetics, habits and diets

This summer was supposed to be the final one. With the Dallas Mavericks eliminated in the regular season and without playing in the playoffs, Doncic had his most restful summer ahead of him in recent years, with a month and a half between the last game with Dallas and his incorporation with the national team. Slovenia.

Things don’t seem to have changed much. In fact, even working a small miracle by putting a team as limited as Slovenia in the crossroads, some of us have the feeling that it has been the worst Luka with his team of his last years, behind last year’s Eurobasket and, of course, the 2021 Olympic Games. And the key is once again in the physique, and in an injury that seems to have been going on since March and that can haunt him during the season if we stick to his own words.

Luka Doncic was one of the great protagonists of the 2023 World Cup

“I don’t know what to say”, Doncic expressed in an interview with Sports Illustrated prior to his last game with Slovenia in the World Cup. “I’m not well. At the same time, I have to prepare for one more game, and then for an entire season in the NBA.”

Luka was referring to an injury in the quadriceps of his left leg, which has not yet finished healing. Three weeks before the start of the training camp, it will be difficult for him to recover before starting the preseason with the Mavericks. While other international stars skipped the event to recover physically, Doncic not only could not miss his appointment with Slovenia, he also He played 37 minutes in two extra games once the team was eliminated and that they were only useful to know the final position in the tournament.

In principle, all the ingredients for the summer of change were present. Almost two months off. Mentalization and hunger after a season of collective failure in Dallas. He had even taken the physical trainer on vacation for the first time in his career. But having all the ingredients does not guarantee that the recipe will turn out well, and with Doncic we ended the summer with more doubts than those we had when we started it, and with the certainty that the great desired change does not seem to have occurred.

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The example of Nikola Jokic

If we try to look at a case similar to his, probably the most drastic physical change in the current NBA is the one he signed Nikola Jokic. At the beginning of the 2019-20 season, the Serbian decided to go on a diet and exercise more in extra hours outside of training, and he intensified it during the months of the COVID break, to the point that there were photos of him that went viral. “Is that Nikola Jokic or Novak Djokovic?”, it was joked. Some colleagues and former colleagues like Jameer Nelson wrote to him privately to congratulate him on the change. “When you do something like that you show the team that you will do anything to winand that drags down the rest,” the point guard told ESPN.

Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic talk after a confrontation in the NBA

David Zalubowski / LaPresse

We don’t know if Luka is capable of making a change similar to Jokic based on a healthy diet because each body is a world and has different possibilities. The diet that worked so well for my neighbor was of no use to me. And we also don’t know exactly what the specific problem is with Luka, whether it is diet, physical preparation or other reasons. But it does seem clear that his physique is not tuned to the maximum within his possibilities. Perhaps it is mainly a question of genetics, and even if it were, Luka himself is the first to say every year that he should do more to feel better physically.

Doncic’s career is already a Hall of Famer, but simply saying that is not enough for someone called to do great things, to dominate. To his 24 years, Luka still has time to reach those heights, but he is now entering the crucial phase of his career, which is supposed to give us his best years and several rings if the team and the offices in Dallas or in another hypothetical franchise in the future help you. And even though his numbers (even playing injured) and his impact are going to be huge either way, and even if it’s MVP candidate of the NBA for many more years no matter what happens, we cannot ignore the cloud of doubt that is growing little by little, season by season, and that warns us that it is possible that we may not get to see the best possible version of Doncic due to physical reasons.

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2023-09-16 04:55:00
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