HALLELUKA: Luka Clinches All-NBA 1st team. 4th in 5 years

[burekemde]

https://twitter.com/espn_macmahon/status...0740833281

I know it's way too early to start worrying about Luka long term, but MBT needs to be really careful with team building if they want Luka for life.

I agree.

He is extremely competitive. No critics to Dirk, or anyone else for that matter, but I dont see others at the moment as competitive as Luka. You dont see 20 year old that tear up jerseys if not winning. He wants to win and he will win. Not in long term, not even soon, but right now.

He will not allow the rest of the team to be assembled from bench players all his career. On this team right now there is nobody besides KP that is considered a good starter, besides Luka as well. THJ, DFS, Curry, Powell, they would be bench players for other average or good teams.

Thats all a great thing that Luka is so competitive. Its ok he didnt had the best game like almost all other games. Its a game where rest of the team was also absent, the defense completely. Where the hell was the bench???? Not only this game but many last games, the bench has been horrible. Luka got us on a  streak in 3rd i beleive it was, and got us within 10 points this game, then he got out and bench came in. Next thing you know and we are down 20.

Luka cant do it alone. And Jordan also could not. He had Pippen, Kukoc, Rodman. GSW, curry, Klay, Durant etc.

Nobody besides Luka could take on the game at the moment and carry the team. Luka needs to do it throughout the game every single game. Nobody can do that consisently, there will be a "bad" game once in a while from every superstar.
KP can do it for some streches, which eases it for the team, and anchors the defense.

Besides KP, we need one or two more players to make a consistent team that will rarely or never have bad games. Its not Lukas fault. Jordan also needed that. Its a team sport.

Ultimate competitors don´t walk back on defense and argue with the refs while their matchup scores easy layups on the other end. It´s okay that he has an off game. The way he behaved himself on the court was not acceptable. He can rip his jersey. He can be angry at himself but he cannot yell at teammates (Wright in the 1st quarter) and he cannot stop playing just because he did not get the call or even worse after he made an mistake and missed a shot or turned the ball over.
Lukas 1st half last night reminded me a lot of Rondos last game in a Mavs jersey. Good reminder that even though he is incredible advanced as a player he is still only 20 years old. Maturity might come with age (as it did for Dirk) but I would like to see a shorter leach for Luka.

I agree fully on some of those part. However, this walking back on defense and letting them score easy is not too often. I could rewatch some games and count that, the number is not high. Most of the time he plays well defense and much better staying in front of defender than before. Grabbing defensive rebounds is also defense. He is better than Powell and perhaps one of our best defensive rebounders. The problem with the few defensive meltdown plays where he just does not make the effort and lets the opponent come by, is that those plays are super easy for fans to remember and super easy to recognise. So it does happen 2 times a game or so, some games more some games not at all. But it is harder to recognise when he defends really well. The last games he was rather on a streak i would say playing quiet well man to man defense. The few occasions where he melts down on defense are indeed embarassing but i think they all have to do with him being tired. He is just not in shape especially with so high usage rate on the offense. You can see him often stopping grasping for air at times... On defense if you are not fit every single second, just one step wrong if you are tired and you are out of it. To me what strikes out is that he IS capable of playing great defense. That you cant say of other players, such as trae young that never will be able to do. So it is a matter of fitness and perhaps he should play bit more off the ball on the offense in order to stay fresh all game long and be able to excel on defense as well, so he has no plays off, not a single one per game.

Thus, i really do not agree that it is because of competitiveness. Luka is by far the most competitive player i have seen and it is not even close. Everywhere he has been he has find a way to win. You will see that once his fitmess is excellent and when he gets used in the right way on offense, not being asked to carry it up the court every time, but instead receiving it in the post and playing off the ball, he will be able to put more energy on the defensive side as well.

The complaining to refs. That will go away, thats not a worry at all. Thats how everyone does in europe. Thats a cultural thing and that will quickly change, but is something that cant immediately be go away. I agree this part does not work in NBA and even hurts. In europe if you dont complain to refs you loose the game, its that simple, its a huge disadvantage not to do it. In basketball, football everything, its the culture that way and what you grow up with. Especially Luka being fouled so much as he is, its rather an extreme example, and even if he wasnt from europe and not used to complain to refs, even an american player would find this extreme, im pretty sure. Like with everything else, Luka always adapts to the winning ways, I am pretty sure he will scale down on the complaining. It simply does not work in the NBA. To me its obvious he will become a great defender as well with time. That someone else dribbles the ball up the court other than Luka and then handles the PG duties to him in the final third, this to me solves all the issues. You cant double Luka then that easy because when he is far enough up in the opponents half, it is way more dangerous to double team there. He also stays more fresh, which makes him better offensively and defensively. And it increases the effectiveness of where he is with the ball. At this very moment, he is asked to spend most of his fitness on dribbling the ball up the court, getting doubled there often and pressured, and rarely takes some off the ball plays. And he is asked to carry the offense completely. No wonder he takes a few plays off on defense, that has nothing to do with lack of being competitive, rather that he should be used differently.