Last week, Luka Doncic was in action during the “Night of the Dragon”, a special farewell game for former Miami Heat star Goran Dragic. The night was supposed to celebrate the career of the recently retired Slovenian legend. But it ended with some criticism coming Luka’s way instead as he had put on some weight since his NBA Finals appearance.
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However, former NBA champion and co-host of SiriusXM’s NBA Radio, Antonio Daniels thinks such concerns are blown out of proportion at this point of the year.
The former San Antonio Spurs guard endured a 13-season-long career in the NBA, so he knows a thing or two about the toll an NBA season can take on someone’s body. Daniels thinks it is not the end of the world to find someone out of shape in the offseason after a long NBA season.
Therefore, he isn’t worried about Doncic’s fitness going into next season. Not yet anyway.
“If we’re having this conversation in October, that’s an issue. But to have that conversation right now, when we’re still in August…It’s tough to say but it’s not like training camp starts tomorrow. He still has time,” said the 49-year-old analyst.
"He needs to find out what works best for him."
Hear @adaniels33 tell @RickKamlaSports why he isn't worried about Luka Dončić's conditioning heading into the season#MFFL pic.twitter.com/ZDtMIuOVFA
— SiriusXM NBA Radio (@SiriusXMNBA) August 26, 2024
History would suggest that Daniels is right on the money. Luka reportedly weighed 260 lbs during the training camp in 2021, well above his playing weight of 230 lbs. But that didn’t stop Doncic from averaging 28-9-9 and earning an All-NBA First Team selection that season.
Even more promisingly, over the last two seasons, the 25-year-old has averaged over 36 minutes a game while steadily increasing his points average and efficiency. This isn’t to say that a slimmer Doncic won’t be better for the Dallas Mavericks. After all, the team itself had asked their star player to “decrease his preferred playing weight” in the summer of 2023.
But Doncic is notorious for using the long NBA season to get back in shape. There were speculations about his weight at the start of last season as well. However, Doncic still led the Mavs to win the stacked Western Conference by the end of the postseason.
Were the NBA Finals Luka Doncic’s “moment of clarity”?
Another former NBA guard, Jay Williams, had spoken on Doncic’s conditioning after his Mavericks went down against Boston this year. The 2001 NCAA champion said plainly, “This offseason, he [Doncic] needs to lose weight…He can be functional defensively…and make sound decisions when his conditioning is better down the stretch. Then, he can win a championship. This is his moment of clarity.”
The numbers do unfortunately back up the criticism surrounding Doncic’s defense. The Slovenian averaged a 67.7% blow-by rate during the Celtics series, the highest in a decade. Even Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd had to agree that defensively, Doncic “definitely got a bullseye on his chest.”
Teams will keep aiming at that bullseye if they can exploit 77’s flat-footedness on defense. So if the Dallas Mavericks want a chance at winning the franchise’s second NBA championship, they will need a version of Luka Doncic that remains active on defense. And he needs to be in shape for that.
