08-07-2021, 10:55 AM
(08-07-2021, 09:55 AM)sefant Wrote: His ability to play defense is fine i think, his condition is just not very good. He looked like the best defender on Slovenia in other games. He is on the Jokic 3 years ago condition. He isn't capable of spending too much energy on defense. The moment his legs are gone, the amount of bad shots increases. Like clockwork.
Slovenia also had 3 more games with the qualifying tournament. Either he takes more care about his body at some point, or its going to be limit his ceiling going forward. Concerning is that he might wanna play every summer now. If he doesn't pull a Jokic ... Training camp is in 6 weeks (?) already.
long season - Olympics -> no rest/preperation - long season
Euro
World Cup
Olympics
Coming up. Hope i am wrong, but i have my doubts that this will be the season Luka takes the next step condition wise.
It's my second biggest complaint from him. He does not have the same dedication to his body that Dirk did. (I think part of that was Holger's doing with all the practices to get ready before and after the season. Luka is still relatively young, but he is entering his 4th year. There will come a point in time where all the being in shape won't matter because of injury or body fatigue (worn out) or diminishing reflexes/quickness/agility.... he better take advantage of it.
(And the second gripe is he has to learn to let someone else have the reins for a little bit. You can't be so ball dependent and expect to win in the NBA. That works on lower levels because you may be leaps and bounds better than everyone else. But in the NBA, the gap isn't so great and you have several players who are on par with you (and some on the same team) so you have to allow others to shine. An him doing that would also help with his conditioning too. Easier to be fresher in the 4th if you don't hold the ball for 40 minutes every night.)