“Got to Stop Letting Luka Doncic Off the Hook”: Kendrick Perkins Wants Media to Hold Mavericks Star Accountable

As potent as Luka Doncic is on the offensive end, his defense leaves a lot to be desired. The Mavericks have always played around him and never expected him to be a major factor defensively. However, that is no longer feasible.

Teams are now actively hunting for the guard and Slovenian sensation’s poor defense has been exploited at a higher clip this season than ever before. And Kendrick Perkins is incensed about his lack of desire to improve.

The analyst went on an expletive rant about Doncic’s defense on the Road Trippin‘ podcast and called out the media for giving the Mavericks superstar a pass for his lackadaisical defense. He said,

“Luka Doncic, that’s what I  f**king want to rant about. We have got to stop letting him off the hook. Real talk, enough is enough… Do you know he’s leading the league defensively in blow-bys? He has 43 of them… He’s not even putting forth the f**king effort to go out there defensively… We are asking you to put forth some f**king effort and fix your body language. You know why? Because it’s contagious.”

Doncic’s worrisome effort on defense came to the fore in the Mavericks’ embarrassing loss to Jazz, who sit at the bottom of the Western Conference standings. On the game’s penultimate possession, the guard stood around cluelessly and left John Collins wide-open for the go-ahead dunk.

It sparked a discussion about the guard’s terrible defensive awareness, which is becoming a major concern, considering his offensive impact hasn’t been nearly high enough to make up for his horrid defense.

Luka’s Magic missing

The Mavericks have accepted that they’d have to live with Doncic’s defensive inefficiencies but expect him to be one of, if not the best offensive players in the league. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been anywhere close to it this season.

He’s averaging 28.1 points, 5.8 fewer than last season, and the second-fewest since his sophomore season. Could that be attributed to summer signing Klay Thompson taking away shot attempts from the Slovenian superstar? Well, no.

Doncic is averaging 22.6 shots per game, the second-highest mark of his career. The real issue is that he hasn’t found his shot yet. A 43.5% field-goal percentage, with 32.4% from beyond the arc is too inefficient for a player who ranks second in the league in shot attempts per game.

Moreover, an assists-to-turnover ratio of 2.3 is unacceptable, considering he’s playing alongside two bonafide superstars in Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson.

It’s still early in the year and there’s hope he’ll bounce back from his slump. However, it’s inarguably the worst start to a campaign Doncic has had since his sophomore season, which is why the Mavericks, touted to be title contenders, are 8-7 and sit ninth in the Western Conference standings.