So why don't Mavs fans show more anger towards Luka? Ignore the trade for a second and look at what happened (that we know of) leading up to the trade.

I think the point of what Nico did in the ~1-2 years prior to the Luka trade is important. He got Lively, Gafford, Dinwiddie, Exum, Naji, Klay, Grimes, etc to surround Luka with shooting, defense, rim protection, rim roller, etc and Luka repays that by being in the worst shape of his career? They got Nico one of the most talented players in the entire NBA who was also the team leader and alpha (according to my friends at the Mavs) in Kyrie.

Luka had 9 teammates averaging 9+ppg (Lively, Grimes, Dinwiddie, Naji, Exum, Gafford, Klay, PJ, Kyrie) and Lively was the only one averaging under 10ppg at 9.1ppg. Just needed an extra lob per game.

All of us agreed (mavs and non-mavs fans alike) that Nico absolutely cooked to get this team together entering the season.

And Luka repays that by being in the worst shape of his life? What exactly will it take for him to put in the effort expected of a talent like him getting paid the maximum allowed by the NBA? And why aren't fans pissed at him for this?

Guitarsoup said:

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So why don't Mavs fans show more anger towards Luka? Ignore the trade for a second and look at what happened (that we know of) leading up to the trade.

I think the point of what Nico did in the ~1-2 years prior to the Luka trade is important. He got Lively, Gafford, Dinwiddie, Exum, Naji, Klay, Grimes, etc to surround Luka with shooting, defense, rim protection, rim roller, etc and Luka repays that by being in the worst shape of his career? They got Nico one of the most talented players in the entire NBA who was also the team leader and alpha (according to my friends at the Mavs) in Kyrie.

Luka had 9 teammates averaging 9+ppg (Lively, Grimes, Dinwiddie, Naji, Exum, Gafford, Klay, PJ, Kyrie) and Lively was the only one averaging under 10ppg at 9.1ppg. Just needed an extra lob per game.

All of us agreed (mavs and non-mavs fans alike) that Nico absolutely cooked to get this team together entering the season.

And Luka repays that by being in the worst shape of his life? What exactly will it take for him to put in the effort expected of a talent like him getting paid the maximum allowed by the NBA? And why aren't fans pissed at him for this?

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It's a legitimate question. I think you could say that Luka has never been in tremendous physical shape. Maybe it's a Euro thing. Jokic is a dough boy too. Sabonis, Gobert, none of them have been built like Ben Wallace.

Luka is an iconic player that will eventually figure it out. Maybe this is a wake up call.

I'm a long time Philly Eagles fan. Buddy Ryan made the tough decision to cut Cris Carter because of his drug addiction. It was a wake up call. Carter rebuilt his life and became an NFL hall of fame WR.

South Platte said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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So why don't Mavs fans show more anger towards Luka? Ignore the trade for a second and look at what happened (that we know of) leading up to the trade.

I think the point of what Nico did in the ~1-2 years prior to the Luka trade is important. He got Lively, Gafford, Dinwiddie, Exum, Naji, Klay, Grimes, etc to surround Luka with shooting, defense, rim protection, rim roller, etc and Luka repays that by being in the worst shape of his career? They got Nico one of the most talented players in the entire NBA who was also the team leader and alpha (according to my friends at the Mavs) in Kyrie.

Luka had 9 teammates averaging 9+ppg (Lively, Grimes, Dinwiddie, Naji, Exum, Gafford, Klay, PJ, Kyrie) and Lively was the only one averaging under 10ppg at 9.1ppg. Just needed an extra lob per game.

All of us agreed (mavs and non-mavs fans alike) that Nico absolutely cooked to get this team together entering the season.

And Luka repays that by being in the worst shape of his life? What exactly will it take for him to put in the effort expected of a talent like him getting paid the maximum allowed by the NBA? And why aren't fans pissed at him for this?

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It's a legitimate question. I think you could say that Luka has never been in tremendous physical shape. Maybe it's a Euro thing. Jokic is a dough boy too. Sabonis, Gobert, none of them have been built like Ben Wallace.

Luka is an iconic player that will eventually figure it out. Maybe this is a wake up call.

I'm a long time Philly Eagles fan. Buddy Ryan made the tough decision to cut Cris Carter because of his drug addiction. It was a wake up call. Carter rebuilt his life and became an NFL hall of fame WR.

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Everyone is motivated by different things. Basically the only time Shaq showed up in incredible shape was in 99 for the 00 season after getting swept out of the playoffs by Duncan and Robinson. Lakers went out and bought Phil and Shaq did everything you would want from the star and leader of the team (for one season.) |

Getting to the Finals and then upgrading your team seems like a really great motivator for most people. The right talent is in place, right? Or if you are motivated by negatives, losing in the Finals then not qualifying for the Olympics should light a fire under you. Time to silence the haters?

From Feb 24th until July 6th, Mavs brought in Grimes, Gafford, PJ Washington, Naji Marshall and Klay Thompson and only lost Grant Williams, Seth Curry, DJ, and Josh Green. Massive upgrades all around.

Slovenia lost to Greece on July 6th, the day the Klay S&T was finalized. Slovenia didn't qualify for the Olympics at that point.

At that point, Luka had 3.5 months before the regular season started. So what happened in those ~16 weeks other than Mike Finley not being around to remove alcohol? What does Luka do from July 6th until the pickup game injury?

Luka is surrounded by guys that work hard. Cuban, Dirk, Kidd, Shammgod, Armstrong, Kyrie, Klay. Y'all probably know better than I do. I know they have been having the motivation issues for years. It just doesn't make sense to me that he could have those problems without bigger underlying problems (such as Cris Carter's drug addiction or Shaq's fame addiction) and I also don't think that those issues haven't been addressed repeatedly over the years, but they were met with the worst shape of Luka's life this year after Nico did an amazing job getting the right mix of players around him.

mavsfan4ever said:

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I think a lot of mavs fans were mad at Luka. I certainly was. It got to the point where he was sooo frustrating to watch with his constant complaining and non-hustling, etc. my friends and I were constantly having those conversations. He was still very good but it was frustrating that he wouldn't change the bad attitude and become even better.

I also constantly complained about him not moving the ball and taking 30 foot step backs literally every possession at the end of a quarter or game. We were essentially giving away multiple possessions a game bc of that.

The conditioning honestly wasn't as big of an issue. Look at the playoffs last year. Ant was played off the court bc he couldn't hang with Luka and Kyrie conditioning wise. Luka may not be shredded but he conditioning was never a huge problem until this year.

So there were definitely complaints. But at the end of the day, he's 25 and you have to hope he figures it out. Most people figure it out between 25-30. Maybe he would never have figured out the conditioning. But even if he didn't, he's still a top 3 player. And if he did, then it's scary to think how good he could be.

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I will disagree with that, because MC Swag and a lot of other people were complaining in the playoffs that Luka wasn't creating the same rim pressure and it was due to his conditioning. And you can look at his shots at the rim have decreased to less than 10% of his attempts this year, but had been up to over 1/4 of his attempts in previous years.



That is regular season. In the playoffs last year, only .087 of his attempts were at the rim, while .258 of his attempts were midrange 11-23' And Luka's FG% and 3FG% were understandably down in the playoffs. I do think his conditioning played a part in that, and it got much worse in the offseason.

I guess I should say it wasn't as big of a problem as the other issues in my opinion. The fact that he would come in overweight was a constant talking point and no one liked it. And I agree his explosion and rim attacking went down. I also complained about that bc he settled for step back 3s waaaayyy too much. But people are now acting like he was 300 pounds and couldn't move. They are overblowing it out of proportion. Like I said, I don't hear anyone on the national stage complaining about ant's conditioning, and his poor conditioning arguably lost the wolves the mavs series.

He got us to the finals with all these deficiencies. And we approved the roster. So even if he didn't really improve, our floor was very high. And if he improved his attitude, conditioning, plan of attack, or all of the above, then our ceiling was insanely high.

mavsfan4ever said:

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I guess I should say it wasn't as big of a problem as the other issues in my opinion. The fact that he would come in overweight was a constant talking point and no one liked it. And I agree his explosion and rim attacking went down. I also complained about that bc he settled for step back 3s waaaayyy too much. But people are now acting like he was 300 pounds and couldn't move. They are overblowing it out of proportion. Like I said, I don't hear anyone on the national stage complaining about ant's conditioning, and his poor conditioning arguably lost the wolves the mavs series.

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I just don't agree about Ant. He put up 25/9/8 with good shooting numbers against Dallas while he had to do ****ing everything because Conley was washed and KAT disappeared because it was playoff time. In those first three games, KAT shot .278/.136

Ant was the only reason Minnesota kept those games close, and that is after Ant had to carry Minnesota against Denver in 7 games, averaging 41mpg in that series.

He was literally having a hard time breathing and had to be taken out bc of it. I'm not saying he didn't play well but it was a huge talking point during the series. His conditioning clearly wasnt good which everyone was saying was crazy for such a young player.

Again, I think that had more to do with him having to carry the load than just being in awful shape. Obviously, he could have been in better shape (he's not Kobe), but he was having to carry the team on both ends. It isn't like Ant was only having to score. He was having to defend Luka, run the offense because Conley was washed, go through screens because Rudy was being abused, and carry the scoring load because KAT **** the bed. Rudy was being abused (McDaniels averaged more blocks than Rudy in the playoffs.) Just in the playoffs, Ant played over a hundred more minutes than anyone else on the wolves roster.

Speaking of Kobe, Kobe was gassed in game 6 against the Spurs in 03. Watch him in the 4th. He's out of his explosiveness and instead of guarding Parker or Ginobili, he is just hanging back on Bowen. Kobe gave everything that series, but by then, his tank was empty. I think that 7-game Denver series did that to Ant.

I think you're being a little harsh. The guy was averaging 27/8/8 when he went out. If he was guzzling alcohol and obliterating burritos every day you can't average that. Could he have been in better shape, which might have prevented injury? Probably so.

Talking about rim pressure is getting a little silly. The guy should have won MVP last year even with a declining rim pressure rate. I'm guessing most players by year 5 or 6 see their games adjust in a similar way. If you are good enough to score efficiently without getting to the rim every time, then why wouldn't you.

At the end of the day Luka has always produced. Two Western conference finals in the last three years with one finals appearance. Put up MVP numbers last year. Even this year the Mavs had a much better record when Luka played versus when he didn't. If he didn't produce then sure, people can point the finger at his conditioning. At this point it is just projection. If someone wants to join Nico in projecting declining production moving forward go ahead, but I'm not betting against Luka.

With the rim pressure comes collapsing defenses, which leads to open shots for teammates and FTA. The constant decline on that while we see guys like SGA stay steady should be something to look at and cause for concern. Luka's ability to get incredible rim pressure, use his huge size advantage and body control and kick to open guys anywhere on the court was a huge part of his advantage as a player. That's why Mavs fans were routinely complaining about mid range and step backs.

Look at SGA the last 4 years: .220, .283, .252, .222 and his FG% at the rim has increased all four years. And his FTA was 7, 11, 9, 9.

Luka's FTA went 8, 11, 9, 6.

As great as 28/8/8 is, those numbers plus FG and 3pt were down across the board from last year, weren't they?

Maxey has been .222, .222, .214 his last 3 years.

Dame has steadily declined over the past five years, but it is .238, .239, .194, .175 but he turns 35 this summer.

Brunson starting last year in Dallas: ..147, .149, .127, .155.

Donovan Mitchell starting last year in Utah. .140, .207, .209, .155.

So it isn't everything by any means, and it would be expected to fall off as he gets older... Luka should be entering into his physical prime in his mid-20s. Declining rim pressure and FTA for a guy that should feast on that because he overmatches his opponents should unquestionably be cause for concern, especially because he wasn't exactly shooting threes like Steph. If he is getting to the rim less because he was draining 42% of his threes... yeah, ok, shoot the threes, but fella. But that wasn't the case.

Statement from Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management: "The overwhelming sentiment, after conferring with multiple, nationally recognized doctors, is that the Los Angeles Lakers should not have failed Mark Williams on his physical."

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 20, 2025

I think this could be really interesting, especially if the Hornets press the matter more.

Guitarsoup said:

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Statement from Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management: "The overwhelming sentiment, after conferring with multiple, nationally recognized doctors, is that the Los Angeles Lakers should not have failed Mark Williams on his physical."

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 20, 2025

I think this could be really interesting, especially if the Hornets press the matter more.

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Its the Lakers. LEague isnt going to do chit