In just his fourth season in the league, Luka Doncic is already being recognized as one of the NBA’s top players.
This season, however, the Slovenian has gotten off to a relatively slow start and reports about him being out of shape are taking the league by storm.
“Luka has to stop reporting at 260+ lbs and playing his way into shape,” said Tim MacMahon. “That cannot be an annual storyline. He got off to a slow start last year—“
With averages of 25.6 points, 8.5 assists, and 8 rebounds per game on 44% shooting, Doncic is putting up some of his lowest numbers since his rookie campaign and people are starting to notice.
On FOX’s ‘Undisputed,’ Shannon Sharpe laid into the young stud for his current situation.
“Skip this is bad. I’m very disappointed. Luka, you are a professional athlete. Look at the stat-line last night. He’s 20-30 pounds out of shape and still put up 28, 9, and 8. So how do you tell a guy that’s been out of shape last year fifth in MVP voting, first-team All-NBA, and say ‘bruh you need to get in shape.’ If he had fell off and goes from averaging 28-30 points to all of a sudden he goes down to 20-22 points, he could see ‘man I’m out of shape, I need to do something about this.’ But because he still gets his numbers, how do you tell somebody they need to be in better shape?
Skip this is embarrassing. A professional athlete is out of shape. doesn’t that seem oxymoronic? All he has to do is play his sport. He ain’t got to do nothing else. All he has to do is go play basketball and he can get in shape.
This is flat-out embarrassing for a guy who makes that kind of money that you don’t care enough to train in the offseason.”
There is no questioning Luka’s talent, but his reputation has taken a noticeable dip this season. His refusal to stay in shape during the summer is having some consequences on his game.
To make matters worse, the Mavericks, who are 12-12 so far, look like they’ve taken a few steps back as well.
This is definitely not the way people saw things going in Dallas this season and unless Doncic can flip a switch quickly, he and his team could be in for a rough couple of months.
