SKINNY LUKA DONČIĆ!!! Can the Lakers Capitalize on a “Revenge Body SZN?”

SKINNY LUKA DONČIĆ!!! Can the Lakers Capitalize on a “Revenge Body SZN?”

Hey everyone, welcome to Lockdown Lakers for Tuesday. Brian Kimeki, Andy Konetski, Skinny Luca is real and it’s on magazine covers now. A lot to be excited about for the Lakers coming up next. You are Locked on Lakers, your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast. Part of the Locked On podcast network. your team every day. Thanks to everyone for making Lock on Lakers your first listen of every day, Monday through Friday, no matter how or where you get your podcasts, this one’s always free. Never behind PayWall. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where over 36,000 subscribers are all hanging out and talking about Luca Donic and his reshaped, reformed body. Um, I thought, you know, I was I was out working on my body, working on uh my physique for uh, you know, a week or so. I thought I’d come in and be a big deal, but apparently Andy Luca Donuch stole my thunder. Uh, he is on the cover of Men’s Health looking good. Okay, before we even get into how Luca looks like, I mean, it’s a dramatic change. To put this in perspective, I showed the Men’s Health cover to my wife and my daughter who, you know, neither one of them are massive NBA fans, but they both know who Luca Donuch is. They both took a second. They were like, “Wait a minute, that’s Luca.” Like, they they they both did not initially recognize Luca on this cover of Men’s Health because he looks so dramatically different body-wise. And everybody is saying this, including Luca himself. But also, let’s just take a moment to revel in and celebrate the irony of Luca Donuch being on the cover of Men’s Health, which not that long ago would seem like the punchline to a really rude joke. I think a lot of people have made the point um that perhaps there’s uh some revenge bod going on here. Uh there there’s a a lot of stuff and I look I think there’s a combination of a few things Andy and we’ll get into some of the there’s a lot of interesting stuff in the article but one of the things that struck me about it was the idea that yeah like Nico Harrison cost Luca Donuch a lot of money. He cost him a lot of uh reputational damage. He caused Luca Donuch a great deal of upheaval and angst unexpectedly, totally unexpectedly being kind of torn away from the only professional homies known in the NBA, I should say. Um, and all this and I’m not trying to make Luca out to be like a like a charity case here, but like there was a lot going on here that Luca had zero expectation or influence over. It’s not an Anthony Davis situation where he asked for this. Luca wasn’t asking to leave Dallas and expect You mean when Anthony Davis showed up in LA to make it clear, not when AD went to Dallas. No, right. When AD wanted to was trying to push his way out of New Orleans. So, yeah, but you’re correct. But like there’s a lot going on here. And so, yes, I think and well, we can all hope that Luca Donic has a chip on his shoulder and a rage towards Nico Harrison that fuels him to throttle the league for the next decade or so in a Lakers uniform. That’s everyone’s goal. But Andy, one of the things that I thought was interesting about this Men’s Health article is that it does make it clear that this is also part of at least, you know, based on what’s coming from Team Luca at the very least, which is where all this I think is primarily sourced. Um, it it’s it is part of an evolution. Certainly not sourced from Team Nico. It is not. It is it is part of an evolution. It notes that, you know, Dirk Nitzky, you know, the the ultimate MAV, um, needed most of a decade before he started to take fitness seriously. It notes that Lucas started putting his team together, you know, a couple years ago to try to move in this direction. And the whole operation, as we’ve talked about on this show, was sort of shortcircuited by a finals run combined with uh you know uh European basketball and playing for Slovenia and injuries and never really getting healthy. And last year was his and also too real quick because I think this matters for Luca and the Lakers specifically moving forward. It got shortcircuited, I think, to some degree, by the Mavs resistance towards Luca using his team as opposed to their team because that had been long a source of tension, particularly in the Nico era of the Lakers wi with Luca. Like the idea of him wanting to use his guys like a lot of, you know, frankly, a lot of players around the league, LeBron has his own team. This is not unusual at all, but there were by multiple reports some resistance uh towards this from the Mavs and that was you know not something that was asking leading to Luca to ask out but it was something he didn’t like. Yeah. And so you know all this matter. I I think it is and I don’t I don’t want to discount the the revenge factor here in this, but I I think it is too reductive to say it’s only that and that there’s no interest in Luca that that there was no part of him that was going to start to evolve more on the idea of taking care of your body better and all these other things as he starts to get closer, still not close close, but closer to 30, getting close to a decade in the league and all that kind of stuff. So, and that is also beneficial to the Lakers that it’s not 100% revenge. Um, is makes it more sustainable, I think, over the long term. I mean, I think it’s both in all honesty. Like, there’s a big piece of both of this in here for Luca. He talks about in the article about, you know, when I was 18 and first got in the league, this stuff was easier just because your body is younger. There’s less mileage on it. You haven’t fallen into as many NBA traps in terms of just the lifestyle. And I don’t mean partying. I don’t mean anything like that. I mean like eating like crap. I mean, you know, frankly, if nothing else, Luca’s transformation overseas, and this is not the first time Luca has looked better from an off season away from the States, and then over the course of an NBA season in the States, gains weight and feels like a scathing indictment of Look, I mean, Andy, Dallas, Dallas isn’t New Orleans. No. But it’s not a place you typically go to lose weight. I mean, no. And look, this stuff matters. Jul, we talked with Julius Randall at length for an interview we did for the Athletics several years ago about when Julius when he went to the Pelicans after the Lakers renounced his rights and he became a free agent, the first thing he did was hire a private chef because he said, “I used to gain weight just on road trips against the Pelicans. I’m going to be here year round now. I I’ve got to do things differently.” And I I think there was a realization for Luca of like, look, I am entering my prime, which a is supposed to be my best years, but b they’re my best years in part as I get older. These are things I need to handle. Make no mistake, though, this is also revenge body and gallivanting all over town, showing it off. Like, Luca is going out of his way to make sure everybody sees his new hot bod. and the fact that he now looks like he could be a male model like there there is no question that he wants everybody to see this. He’s showing off the goods. There’s some human nature here too because anybody who’s like, you know, neither one of us have ever, you know, totally let ourselves go, but neither one of us ex is exactly like, you know, you know, you’d mistake us for, you know, a professional like a linebacker or something like that. You know, we’re we’re in shape, whatever. But like anybody who’s ever been like, you know what, I got to get rid of 10 pounds. We’ve all been there. 10 pounds, 15 pounds, whatever it is. When you get to that point where you can see it, like the first three or four pounds suck because it’s all work. It’s all sacrifice and you can’t see it yet. But when you drop 10, you know, when you get to like 15, you’ve been working out, you’re feeling all of a sudden you can see it and you like it. And there’s a couple things there are moments in here where you know the writer notices like Lucas stops to kind of look at and that is also important because once you kind of get used to it and you like the the the look of it and you know Luca Don is a 26 year old guy like you know I mean want to look good and and all that kind of stuff he sees it like he has seen the transformation and I think the fact that he likes the transformation um is is significant here. There’s one of there not one other thing, there are a few other things that um this article gets into that I think are fascinating in terms of how Luca is training and what to expect from Luca on the floor next year um that I want to unpack. Plus, uh plenty more about what all of this means for the Lakers. We’ll do it next. I remember Andy when Steve Nash was traded to the Lakers and like one of the things you you hear about a lot is like this conversation about athleticism and what an athlete is. Is this guy an NBA athlete? Is this guy not? And what stuck out to me is in in this article is not just that the idea that, you know, Lucas could be leaner, you know, hopefully a little less susceptible to injury. They’ve done work to to bring down his inflammation. Um mixed um sort what do they call it like where you’re play he put down the basketball for, you know, a month, five weeks, whatever, and he was playing pickle ball. He was playing paddle like a different sports that they uh play over there. And it he was, you know, you end up in a situation where like they’re training for him in the athleticism that he has. It’s not about can I jump five inches higher? Can I run, you know, 10% 15% faster, although he might he might be a little bit quicker up and down the floor. But they there was a really great section of that article where they talk about the type of strength that he has in terms of changing speed and what you have to do to maximize that capacity to burst and stop. Different kind of athleticism, different kind of strength and working on stuff that is crafted towards Luca’s athleticism because the notion that he isn’t a topflight athlete is absurd. Well, it’s a different type of athleticism, right? It’s a type of athleticism that isn’t sort of a it isn’t typical for how we grade NBA athleticism specifically, but you know that change of speed that Luca actually is elite like even among the most elite athletes in the league. This is the one area of athleticism that Luca can basically match anybody else. They they refer to it in the piece as uh eccentric force, which is basically getting your muscles to contract and decelerate in that change of speed. And it’s something that I think will help Luca offensively in terms of the way that he can free himself up for shots, get, you know, get defenders on his heels. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if combined with just being lighter on his feet, less mass, it could maybe help him defensively as well because that same that same change of speed that he uses against defenders, he can try to use that when he’s being targeted defensively himself. and the the better he can react with the need to change speed as a defender or just to be able to change speed to catch up to somebody else. Like you said, it’s not necessarily about up and down the court speed, but even if he can defensively, because this is one of the areas that I’m very curious to see if Luca benefits, if it gives him an extra second, second and a half that he can stay with somebody else. So a help defender or somebody can rotate. That one and a half seconds can be the difference between a defensive stop, you know, a possession that ends with a stop or part of the eventual path straight to the basket. Like th those seconds, tiny seconds really do matter. And that’s an area where I think the deceleration on both sides can be a really big deal. Yeah. And you you talked about, you know, Nash and like Luca has a great quote in the article where he, you know, it’s like it’s athleticism isn’t just about jumping really high. And like I agree with you. I think most of where we’ll see these benefits other than Luca hopefully just staying healthier. He’s always been a guy who’s played a lot of games until last year. Um, and so, you know, is this year is he able to play more? Is he able to stay on the floor and avoid last season’s injuries, the soft tissue stuff like the calf and and and whatever? Um, if he does get hurt, if he’s starting from a place, um, a lower weight and all that kind of stuff, will it help him get back faster? But I agree with you. I think it’s the mobility on defense um where we’ll see because look I mean as for those of you on the audio and not watching on YouTube won’t see my air quotes as bad as Luca was last year and it really was his worst season as a pro. I think most people seem to agree the numbers offensively were still quite good. you know, shoot Luca could be honestly Luca could be 400 lb and as long as he is able to play, he would put up bonkers offensive numbers because he’s just that talented. The the assists are there and all that kind of stuff that those numbers are going to be there, but and it’s not that it’s not about him becoming a lockdown guy. I totally agree with you. It’s a matter of what does it mean to your defense if Luca is 15% better? if Luke is 15% more mobile, which makes him because he’s not a god-awful defender, he’s just good at certain things and not so good at other things. So, if he’s 15% better, what does that mean for Austin Reeves next to him? What does that mean for LeBron next to those guys? Um, what does it mean for how you can utilize Marcus Smart presumably in the starting starting lineup? You know, that’s what where you and I both um believe it’ll be. What does that mean for DeAndre Aton? like all defense in the NBA is a puzzle and so how the pieces fit together 15% better that you don’t have to maybe cover for Luca for everything don’t have to cover for Reeves in certain way like that can make a really big difference well it can also too like some of the things that Luca does well like for example he anticipates very well it’s why he can play passing lanes well it’s why I think he’s actually pretty good at bodying up a and anticipating where somebody is driving and actually meeting them there. Like things like that. Again, just being a step or two quicker. It’s also interesting, too, like one of the parts of this profile of Luca that I thought was pretty hilarious and and felt very much like Luca is they talked about how when Luca went a month or so without playing basketball, which in and of itself was an argument. Luca did not want to put down a ball for that long, but he eventually agreed. And beyond the the weight training and the conditioning stuff that they did for him, like you like you said, they were playing pickle ball, paddle, things like that. And Luca ended up eventually enjoying it. I think seeing the benefits of it, but also he liked it because it was something that was competitive. And Luca actually points out, you know, I got in a bad mood when I lost, but I didn’t lose very often. And it reminded me of how when I Franco was on while you were on vacation, you know, has covered Luca forever going back to like Slovenia, Real Madrid, and I asked him about Luca with defense and how like theoretically before we even saw this picture, it’s like the fitness could help. and he talked about how with Luca sometimes his best the best way to utilize him defensively is actually in more challenging assignments because it actually brings out that competitiveness in Luca and like Tim McMahon I I believe talked about this um as well when we had him on when he was promoting his book about Luca like Luca is really insanely competitive and often the things that when you see Luca look, for lack of a better way of putting it, disinterested at times on that end of the court. It can sometimes be a product of not necessarily being challenged enough. So the sweet spot for Luca might be the most difficult assignment that he can reasonably handle because that will keep him most engaged. And if you’re looking to do something like that beyond the overall effect of, hey, if Luca doesn’t have to have the easiest assignment, maybe you can give that to LeBron at times because of his age or whoever. But if he’s more fit, if he’s a little bit quicker, if the conditioning is better, that might make it easier to land on that sweet spot with Luca defensively. Yeah. And I’ll say this and then, you know, we can go to break. A couple other things to to talk about with this. I think the there’s another like basketball part of this because Lucas certainly heard the the chatter after the finals like you know nobody played more minutes nobody scored more points nobody like the idea that Luca somehow was like a liability to the Mavericks in the in that in that playoff run is beyond absurd which is part of the reason Mavs fans found the whole trade to be so ridiculous. this idea that you know Mavs can’t win with Luca on the floor like you know you got to evate better defense like the guy drag you know not dragged there was pretty good team around him but took him to the finals and played more minutes than anybody it wasn’t because he was out of shape that they lost that series or something like that it’s like at some point you just you know you run it but like he heard this idea that like he was attacked and targeted that entire series and you know he is a liability and all last year was just not an opportunity. I’m not saying he’s faultless that he did everything perfect. That’s not my point. But the the the the timing of events essentially made it impossible for him to really respond to that because he didn’t have an off season. He didn’t have an opportunity to get himself healthy and get himself as fit as he even maybe not men’s cover of men’s health, but on the program that he wanted to be just he did not have a chance to do it. And so this season is the first season for him to really respond not just to last season’s stuff, but the the the the criticism that came from the finals. And so I think again when you put all of those things together, you’re starting to see a foundation for, you know, again, just a really a really helpful chip on his shoulder. Absolutely. There’s also I want I want to get into a couple things when we come back. A about one other benefit of this with Luca that I think can be teamwide and connected to Luca but not necessarily directly on the court but also to some of the sour grapes that you’re going to hear from Mavs fans, maybe even message from the Mavericks organization. To which I say cry more. Get into that coming up next. Um, so we’ll get to your stuff here in a second. And any things, but I I do want to note like there was a lot of uh indications on um what day is it? Monday. I’ve been traveling so remembering when things are happening. Over the weekend, was it Monday? I’m not totally sure. Um, as I catch up, multiple people reporting that there is a growing expectation that Luca might actually sign an extension with the Lakers sooner rather than later. I know a few weeks ago, Andy, we were talking about like Brian Wer saying, don’t freak out if it takes a week, two weeks, three weeks or whatever because typically he doesn’t do a lot of NBA business while he’s also doing Slovenia business um, you know, with with Euro Basket and whatever. And so, uh, the the indications are that he actually might sign closer to that August 2nd, um, eligibility. And Andy, the Lakers, certainly, if you’re a Teleaf reader, are feeling really good about what that relationship looks like after things like Luca helping recruit Marcus Smart, um, you know, to to sign with the Lakers as opposed to many other teams that were interested in him. Well, he also just happens to be in LA on August 3rd for part of a Nike event that he is I don’t know if he’s hosting or helping promote or whatever. It’s some one global one-on-one tournament. He’s had stops in New York, the best one-on-one players in the world. Yeah. And this led to Luca, by the way, at Yankee Stadium. And this is where you really know that Luca is in shape because it’s one thing to look in, you know, dark navy or black shirts, things like also, you know, the photography is in there and they’re kind of making it look good. It’s men’s health. They know how to make people look fit, but also those are slimming colors. But white, like white can be very unflattering, which Luca wore at Yankee Stadium. There’s no trick to photography there. My man’s looks hot. Like white hot. the man the man looks like a damn model, but like he’s gonna be there on on August 2nd or August 3rd, right at the time where he can actually sign this thing. So, it it works out at least potentially perfect. He’s going to be right there before he eventually goes back to Slovenia for Euro Basket. Couple of things that I wanted to get into in terms of what this means moving forward. Really quickly to address these sour grapes that are inevitably coming from Mavs fans, from the Mavericks organization. Well, this proves Nico was right. Like, this would have never happened unless he got traded. Like, if he had stayed in Dallas, you know what? I don’t care. I don’t give an F, man. That’s Dallas’s problem. That’s Nico’s problem. you they had seven six and a half seasons to reach Luca along these lines and I know that I asked both Nick Angstaff from Locked on Mavs and Tim McMahon to the best of your knowledge was there ever really like a difficult conversation sit down with Luca over this hey we we want you to be a Mavs lifer like Durk who you quite literally Durk’s last season was Luca’s rookie year it like a true passing of the torch. We want you to be that guy, but we have these concerns. And neither Nick nor Tim, who know that team very well, was certain that something that direct ever happened. And that is a that is as much, if not more, a failure on the part of those guys. Say what you will about the Lakers and their history of star efy, which you and I have often been critical of. JJ Reic was not afraid to throw out the championship shape. You know, that everyone needs to get in championship conditioning line. That may not have been solely about Luca, but it was certainly not not about Luca. And that was before Luca was locked up and like risk of losing whatever. They they said the thing that needed to be said. Maybe the context changes it, but bottom line, Dallas, you had your opportunity to make this happen and you didn’t. do better next time. Um, the thing though that I think Go on. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. No, I I think we may be going I think we may be going to the same place. So, go ahead. The thing though that I’m very excited about for the Lakers moving forward beyond the individual ways that this may help Luca as a player, keep him on the court more, all that stuff. I think this can be a teamwide galvanizing thing, like a real let’s effing go type thing because, you know, Luca’s teammates have all seen him and they’re all they all have to be like, “Holy bleep, like holy bleep, he looks like a different dude.” And when that guy heading into his first full season of it officially being Lucas team, we all know it’s Lucas team. It’s Lucas franchise. When he commits himself heading into a season like that, it puts an extra level of accountability and onus and I would even say inspiration with everybody else because you want to match the cues being set by your leader. And this is Luca really stepping up in a way that everybody has said he’s needed to. I think it makes it very difficult in a great way for other guys not to follow suit when they see this. I It’s a you know I think like LeBron with defense you know all that stuff like you need your best players ideally to set the best examples. doesn’t always work that way. Um, I don’t mean necessarily they need to be your most vocal leaders. They got to be yelling and screaming and do all that stuff, be great with the media, like no, like, but what you it is always better when your best players have the best habits. Um, you know, say what you will about Kobe, particularly earlier in his career and his ability to work with teammates, to relate to guys, to to have multiple ways to bring a guy along. For a long time, Kobe sort of every pro he only had a hammer and every problem was a nail. Um, and as the the toolbox expanded for him over the course of of time and as he got better as a leader and all that kind of stuff, but the one thing you would never accuse Kobe of is not being like he set an example of like this is the standard of being ready to play, of being, you know, taking your job seriously and being fit. And even then, like, you know, he didn’t take his diet seriously over the first few years of his career. I mean, we we had conversations with him about that, but he still I mean, the the dude put in time in the gym and all that kind of stuff. He just elevated even more as he got a little bit older. And you compare that to Shaq who famously didn’t do those things. And in Aliio, it impacts your team when your best players don’t take that stuff as seriously. And you know, LeBron when he dialed in on defense last year, that that kind of come to Jesus moment after the Miami game, it turned around what the Lakers were doing defensively. And I think I agree with you. Everybody sees Luca and they’re going to be excited about it. You know, Marcus Smart, I read something this week is I think it was from Stein um saying that you know, he’s changing his body a little bit kind of after an injury-filled season and all that kind of stuff. LeBron is always going to be fit. Like it just it elevates the group. But it’s got to the best stuff now has to come from Luca because this is Luca’s team. Yeah. And these are also the signs of Luca taking that responsib responsibility seriously. And obviously you don’t want to get too far ahead of yourselves. Like we we have not even reached August yet, much less preseason, much less an actual season, much less hopefully several years with Luca in a Laker uniform. But you can only grade based on what’s in front of you. And you can only try to read tea leaves and figure out what it means based on the things that have happened. And one of the things that happened is Luca has very clearly dedicated himself to being in a better athletic shape and addressing at least theoretically some of the things that as great as Luca has been, there have been certain pitfalls I think with injury that I think reasonably you could suspect are connected in some way to conditioning or weight or just too much mass. I think he’s still going to be after leaning out strong as hell. I mean, one of Luca’s big advantages has always been he’s really, really strong. But even if you lose some of that mass, if you’re replacing it with more lean muscle, you’re going to remain strong. And I think Luca is just naturally strong, period. They’re not these are not dumb people. Um, and strength and weight are not the same thing. They are not I I can guarantee you they are not sacrificing an ounce of Lucas functional strength and more likely they’re adding to it. So again, he’s a strong dude just inherently to begin with. Yeah, absolutely. They’re just leaning him out a little bit. And so I just I look at this and it it is it validates if the Mavs guys could say, “Yeah, sure.” like you said earlier, you can validate their thought, too. I don’t care about whether it but like for the Lakers, you need to see these signs. You’re going to sign Luca to whatever contract he wants anyway. All but like to to to erase any of that back of your mind stuff like this the last three weeks of news have been fantastic. And I’ll tell you, I’m actually really excited that he’s got Eurob basket to go into because like there’s this he had a break to get his body right. He had a break from basketball to do different kinds of training. He’s back on the floor. There’s this progression to his off season. Now he gets to play some games and then he’ll get a little bit of chance to recover before training camp starts. And you can just there’s this flow of end of last season into the beginning of next season that is perfect that he seems to have a phenomenal plan for. And I’m going to leave I’m going to at least on my part I’m going to leave you with a line from this profile of men’s health that I think is really great in terms of figuring out at least how sustainable this could be moving forward. Lucas says of, you know, just the work that he’s been doing to rebuild his body. Quote, “If I stopped now, it was all for nothing.” And, you know, that’s it’s very much along the lines like, you know, I when I quit smoking, I was a pretty heavy smoker for decade, decade and a half and eventually quit. And once I really quit, once you start getting those days under your belt of having quit, it becomes that much more of an incentive to stay quit because you’re like, well then what was the point of going six months without smoking if I’m just going to start again? And you know, it’s the it’s the same thing with any vice or I don’t even want to call it with Luca vice necessarily, a lifestyle change. The more days you get under your belt doing this, the more results you get that you like, the more incentivized you are not to backslide. Yeah. It just become it’s the routine. It becomes it becomes your what do they say like you got to do something for 30 days before it can be considered a different habit. You know, there are all these things like you just have to do things. You have to live with something for a certain amount of time before it can really become your new normal. Um, and so hopefully this is um, Luca’s new normal and we’ll see. Uh, but anyway, in between Lockdown Lakers is uh, you can go hang out with that. I forgot it’s been so long I forgot how I end this show. Uh, locked on Lakers on YouTube is you can go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers to the channel. Check us out. Uh, Spotify, subscribe there, subscribe on Apple, iTunes. Do make sure you’re getting that audio subscription as well as what you see on YouTube. See everyone tomorrow.

Luka Dončić is the new Men’s Health magazine cover boy and looks exceptionally fit… even borderline unrecognizable. If this is the new Luka moving forward, what does this mean for the Lakers?