As the Los Angeles Lakers are already loving life with Luka Dončić, new information about Luka’s fallout with the Dallas Mavericks continues to bubble to the surface.
Luka and the Lakers defeated the Mavs this week behind a triple-double from The Don, and Mavericks GM Nico Harrison was in attendance to watch the player he grew to dislike in Dallas.
Shortly after the Lakers-Mavericks game, The Athletic’s Sam Amick released an interesting piece that revealed some of the negative feelings Mavericks front office members — surely, Harrison included — harbored toward Dončić as the plot to trade Luka developed.
“Make no mistake, the people who witnessed Dončić’s last days in Dallas do not paint a flattering portrait of the 25-year-old’s professionalism,” Amick wrote.
“They call him lazy. They talk about the weight issues that were such a frequent frustration within their walls. They mention the social habits that The Athletic has reported on — such as a taste for beer and hookah — which have been a point of concern for NBA types since he was a 19-year-old star for Real Madrid who was entering the draft.”
“They predict his basketball demise, highlighting a health history that, as some see it, will likely lead to catastrophe in the next five years or so.”
Ironically, the player Dallas traded Luka for — Anthony Davis — suffered an injury 31 minutes into his Mavs tenure and hasn’t seen the court since.
Luka is far from a physical specimen, but that’s not what makes him an all-time great basketball player. As intel such as that from Amick continues to emerge, it sounds like Harrison couldn’t separate lifestyle from on-court performance when it came to evaluating Dončić, as if five First Team All-NBA selections by the age of 25 weren’t evidence enough as to Luka’s production.
Dončić looked noticeably slimmer versus the Mavs as compared with his physical profile during his first couple of Lakers games.
Another premise apparently lost on Harrison is that you can instill improved nutrition and conditioning philosophies in a player at any point, but you can’t instill top-five-in-the-world talent in a player who lacks it.
The Mavs felt like Luka was never going to change, but they’re going to look awfully incompetent as an organization if Dončić stays in good physical shape as a Laker.
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