Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[KillerLeft]

He was in shape (by Luka standards) at the start of the season. It was only after he got injured and was out for a stretch that he gained weight.

I think the rest of your post is reasonable and you might be right on target, but I didn't think he showed up in shape this year AT ALL, and one of the things that came out this week was that his first injury of the season was made up by the organization so that he could take a couple of weeks off and try to get into better shape. He was not playing well at all to start the season off and was only just recently starting to pick things up before this latest, real injury. 

Oh, and this was the second, consecutive year they've had to manufacture an excuse during the early months of the season for him to miss time for conditioning. 

You might be absolutely right that betting on him long term is the smart play here, and you ARE absolutely right that he has proven to be great time and time again, but if we're going to be objective about things, we have to acknowledge that his conditioning is a train wreck and has been trending south for the past 3-4 years consistently.