Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
Luka Doncic’s conditioning was a constant conversation last season. He’s only a few weeks into the offseason but his body already looks different.
Luka Doncic finished his season unbelievably strongly — averaging 32.0 points, 9.2 rebounds, 6.0 assists and 1.6 steals in a Western Conference Finals loss to the Golden State Warriors. He was one of the most productive players in the regular season as well but it definitely got off to a rough start.
Through the end of November though, he was averaging just 25.5 points per game and shooting 43.9 percent from the field, 34.1 percent from beyond the arc and 65.2 percent from the free-throw line. In early December, he even admitted his conditioning was a problem (per ESPN):
“I know I’ve got to do better. I had a long summer. I had the Olympics, took three weeks off, and I relaxed a little bit. Maybe too much. I’ve just got to get back on track.”
According to ESPN, he had reported to training camp at around 260 pounds for the second consecutive season, well above his listed weight of 230.
It’s been just a few weeks since the Mavericks were eliminated from the playoffs but he was already looking quite a bit slimmer at a game for Team Slovenia last week.
Will Luka Doncic be in better shape for the beginning of next season?
It’s nice to see Luka looking slim, and maybe with a little extra definition on those arms. But he also basically hasn’t stopped playing basketball for 10 months if he went right from the NBA playoffs to training with Team Slovenia for summer competition. As he said in those December comments to ESPN, the problems last season came in the downtime between the end of international competition and the beginning of NBA training camp.
Doncic looks like he’s in great shape right now. The trick is going to be resting his body for those couple weeks in September without losing too much of the fitness he’s gained over the past few months.